Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 16. January, 1914. No. 181. 
DRIFTING ALGAE. 
Frank S. COLLINS. 
THE conditions for collecting marine algae differ much from those 
for other plants. Practically all marine algae are under water part 
of the time, and more than half the number of species grow below low 
water mark; some of course can be distinguished when passing over 
them in a boat, but many of the most interesting species grow at a 
depth below the range of vision. The only way to get at these in their 
homes is by dredging, a slow, uncertain process. As Farlow ! says of 
the dredge, “ One sometimes secures by its means rare species, but as a 
rule, a day of dredging is a day wasted." "The only way in which good 
results can be secured, is by a thoroughly equipped expedition, working 
from a steamer and going carefully over the selected area systemati- 
cally. That such work may produce good results is shown by the 
recent Vol. XXXI of the Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries, contain- 
ing the Survey of the Wood's Hole region. But as to the prospect of 
getting a fairly complete representation of the flora of a region in this 
way, the land botanist can judge if he imagines himself getting the 
flora of a meadow by going over it in an peronmerte in a dark night, 
with a long-handled rake. 
Ever since the beginning of the study of algae, our knowledge of the 
sublitoral ? flora has been obtained from the “rejectamenta,” plants 
washed ashore; often immense quantities of algae, in great variety, 
1 Farlow, The marine algae of New England, p. 22, 1881. 
2 Sublitoral is here used in the sense of below the litoral, the litoral region including 
the range between tide marks; in zoological terminology it has sometimes been used 
as meaning partly or nearly litoral, the prefix being used in the same sense as in sub- 
tropical; I use it here in the same sense as in subterranean. 
