MISS E. S. BARTON ON NOTHEIA ANOMALA. 417 
On Notheia anomala, Harv. et Bail. By ETHEL SAREL Barton. 
(Communicated by GEORGE Murray, Esq, F.R.S., F.L.S.) 
[Read 4th May, 1899.] 
(Prates 12-14.) 
Tue Fucaceous genus Notheia was founded by Harvey and 
Bailey on the species N. anomala, and published in the United 
States Exploring Expedition (Capt. Wilkes), vol. xvii. Botany, 
1862, p. 157. The authors describe it as parasitic on Hormosira 
Sieberi, and remark on the unusual mode of growth, in which 
“each branch rises as it were viviparously from the scaphidium 
of a previous branch.” They doubt here whether it may not be 
some spurious production of the host-plant, but in a note added 
later, loc. eit., Dr. Harvey expresses himself as satisfied that 
* Notheia is really a parasitic alga and not a metamorphic 
state of Hormosira.” Four figures are given of Notheia, among 
which is one of * a perispore with paranemata." This evidently 
represents an antheridium, for it contains a large number of 
regularly arranged cells, and the text describes the fruit as con- 
sisting of * spores in very narrow, almost linear, slightly obovate, 
almost parietal perispores." 
The next records are in Hooker’s * Flora of New Zealand,’ 
vol. ii. 1855, p. 215, and Hooker's *Handbook of the New 
Zealand Flora; 1864, p. 653, which, however, add nothing to the 
description of Harvey and Bailey. In “ Observations on the 
Fueoidee of Banks Peninsula” (Transactions of the New 
Zealand Institute, vol. xviii. 1885, p. 308), Mr. Laing gives a 
short account of Notheia. He quotes Hooker’s description in 
the ‘ Handbook’ (l. e.), and for the first time records the oogonia, 
which he also figures. He says, however, that from lack of good 
material he could not verify the number of oospheres in each 
oogonium. 
This point is decided by Miss Mitchell in a note on N. anomala 
(Murray’s ‘ Phycological Memoirs,’ pt. ii. p. 36, 1893). She 
finds eight oospheres in each oogonium, though their arrangement, 
as figured by her, does not agree with the result of my investi- 
gations, to be described later. She gives good figures, natural 
size, of JVotheia growing on its two hosts, Hormosira and 
Xiphophora. 
LINN. JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XXXIV. 2H 
