IRbobora 



JOURNAL OF 



THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 



Vol. 6 December, 1904 No, 72 



ALGAE OF THE FLUME. 

 Frank S. Collins. 



On September 4th of this year, the writer visited " The Flume " in 

 the Franconia region of New Hampshire. The Flume is one of the 

 well known objects of interest of the mountain region of the state, and 

 many readers of Rhodora are doubtless well acquainted with it; but 

 for the benefit of others it may be well to say that it is a narrow 

 passage, perhaps averaging 15 or 20 feet wide, between perpendicular 

 walls of rock, seeming almost of artificial construction, so straight are 

 the walls, and so even the width. A mountain stream rushes down 

 through it but there is a path all the way ; sometimes on a shelf of 

 rock, sometimes on planks fastened to the wall. The depth of the 

 cut, for such it probably is, though cut by natural not by human 

 agency, is so great that direct sunlight can seldom reach anything but 

 the uppermost part, and the moisture trickling from above combines 

 with spray from the stream to make an ideal region for algae. 



Nearly everywhere the wall is covered with a dark reddish brown 

 coating; specimens of this taken at different points showed that it was 

 practically the same throughout, four species of algae being found 

 in all the specimens, though varying in relative abundance. Every 

 here and there on this coating were found masses of translucent 

 gelatine, colorless, or pale greenish or yellowish ; these also seemed 

 to be of uniform character, seven species being found in each 

 specimen exainined, but in varying proportions. Both the brownish 

 coating and the gelatine were more abundunt on the southwestern 

 wall than on the northeastern, plainly on account of the smaller 

 amount of light to which the former was exposed. The species com- 

 posing the brown coating were Gloeocapsa Magma (Brt^b.) Kiitz., giv- 



