Vol. 29 



No. 6 



BULLETIN 



OF THE 



TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 



JUNE 1899 



Observations on Nereocystis 



By Conway MacMilian 



(With Plates 361, 362) 



Litroditctory mid Historical, — The bladder-kelp of the northern 

 Pacific coast, first described by Mertens in 1829 under the name 

 of Fucus Liitk€a)ius and afterwards made the type of the genus 



w 



Nereocystis by Postels and Ruprccht, has never received the study 

 that its great size and abundance would have led one to expect. A 

 brief and incomplete account of its anatomy is given by Postels 



in which Plate 



XXXIX., Figs. 24-30 are of the histology of the mature stipe, 

 pneumatocyst and lamina. The most extended anatomical study 



* 



and Ruprecht in their Illustrationes Algarum 



of 



in Lajninariaccae, 



of 



Botany, while some isolated references may be found scattered 

 through the literature of the Laminariaceae and 



that of West 



American algae. 



I have had the unusual opportunity of examining some hun- 



dreds of specimens of Ne 



b 



Miss J 



The 



series includes undoubted specimens from one-half of a millimeter 

 in length to eighty feet and serves to illustrate many points of the 

 anatomy and development which have not hitherto been described. 

 Still younger forms carrying the series back close to the germinat- 

 ing spore are probably in the collection but I am not yet prepared 



[Issued June 17] 



(273 ) 



