130 Rhodora [JUNE 
As the stem is very apt to decay an inch or so from its base, and 
thus increase its natural fragility, the difficulty of collection is great, 
and calculated to try the patience of any one who may happen upon 
this interesting fungus at the end of a day’s trip, and try to get good 
herbarium specimens of it in his last ten minutes of disposable 
time. 
- 
SEAWEEDS IN WINTER. 
F. S. COLLINS. 
THE greater part of the collecting of algae, as well as of higher 
plants, is done in the summer months, or at most in the period between 
the spring and autumn equinoxes, and it will probably surprise those 
who have not already investigated for themselves, to know that the 
life and growth along the shore are continuous. On land the lichen- 
ologist can always find employment, and the bryologist may find 
fruiting mosses during the winter months, but of other land plants 
one finds only the memory of the past or the hope of the future. 
But not much below high-water mark the condition changes, and 
at low-water mark winter seems to have no influence whatever. On 
the first day of January last, I was at a point on the shore of Long 
Island Sound; the day was intensely cold, the thermometer hardly 
above zero. As the tide receded, a film of ice almost immediately 
covered the rocks and the fuci growing on them; every pool was 
covered with ice, but on breaking this coating, algae, red, brown and 
green, were growing in perfection, even the most delicate, filmy Ecto- 
carpus. Before the pool could freeze solid, the tide would return and 
break the ice, and as long as they were not actually solidified, the 
plants experienced no inconvenience. Plants like the fuci can even 
endure some hours of actual congelation and being frozen so stiff that 
they are brittle, if the next tide releases them. 
This hardiness enables the algae to extend to the waters well up 
towards the poles, and to thrive in places where the summer tempera- 
ture of the water is only about 36 degrees Fahr. Some of the 
Laminariaceae have even been known to grow luxuriantly and pro- 
duce fruit, zoospores, during months when the water was never above 
28 degrees Fahr. 
It. must not be supposed, however, that the vegetation on our 
