7 
Besides the curious Fucus just described, I also possess 
three other species with perforated fronds, quite distinct 
from one another: but from the quotations in Turner and 
Agardh, it is impossible to ascertain which of them is really 
the plant that Gmelin, (whose work, alas! I cannot here 
examine,) originally named F. Agarum; a single glance at 
Gmelin’s figures, however indifferent these might be, would 
clear up the point, so unlike one another are these species, 
even at first sight. All three are inhabitants of the coast of 
Kamtschatka; at Unalaschka I remarked only one of them, 
and on other coasts I did not see any of this family. The 
most beautiful, which is at the same time the largest 
and most frequent at Unalaschka, I was obliged to look 
upon as Fucus Agarum,* though I cannot conceive how 
Turner could give so bad a figure; at Kamtschatka I only 
saw the species represented in the Historia Fucorum, although 
the resemblance there is far from perfect. Some circum- 
stances in Turner’s and Agardh’s descriptions lead me to 
suppose, that this is the true F. Agarum, t. 32, and that the 
former author figured, under that name, a plant which I 
shall quote farther on, as F. eribrosus, n. sp. The stipes, 
rising from a strong, ramified root, 2-3 inches long, pre- 
senting a semi-spiral twist, 3 lines broad and 2 lines thick, 
almost suddenly stretches into a nerve, an inch in width, 
which runs through the frond, 2 or 2} feet long. The form 
which the frond describes, is generally oval; only as the 
substance of the leaf, from the nerve towards the margin, 
increases very considerably in bulk, so the form becomes 
indistinct, owing to the folds and sinuosities thereby occa- 
sioned. The proportion between the length of the half 
margin of the frond, and that of the nerve, is about 1 to 7; 
for instance, in a specimen, of which the nerve measured 
18 inches, the length of the margin, from the base of 
the nerve to its termination, was 10 feet and even more. 
'The whole of the frond is perforated with a number of 
generally almost circular, irregularly placed holes; varying 
* Correctly so." Professor Mertens, 
