9 
prove it. The substance is exactly analogous to a cabbage- 
leaf, and there is some resemblance in the inequalities of its 
upper surface. The Harbour of St. Peter and. St. Paul is 
the only station that I remarked for this plant, where it is 
one of the species most abundantly thrown up at this season 
of the year. 
* [n the environs of Illulak I found many and very singular 
varieties of Fucus esculentus : Unalaschka being, as it were, 
the central point in the range of this species. In some indi- 
viduals, the fronds were unusually broad, even resembling 
the foliage of the Banana ;* and, like them, there were long 
lacerations in their substance, caused by the violence of the 
waves: the nerve, in this variety, was round and homo- 
geneous; in another form, it was very broad and decidedly 
quadrangular, besides being hollow and nearly compressed 
at intervals, so as to assume an almost jointed appearance: 
the frond was also generally very narrow, frequently only 
like a bordered fringe to the nerve; in another variety it 
assumed a spirally twisted form. The fruit-bearing pinna 
also was very polymorphous; sometimes quite round, fre- 
quently oval, and occasionally acute on both sides. The 
extremes of these aspects were most dissimilar, though con- 
nected by such gradually intermediate gradations, that it 
was impossible to say where one ended and another began. 
The Kamtschatkan specimens are all remarkable for the 
smallness of the fructiferous pinna. The Bay of Awatscha 
at Kamtschatka, though generally poor in marine produc- 
tions, yet afforded me, besides all the kinds above noticed, 
many other interesting species, some of which are decidedly 
* The Fucus esculentus certainly bears a striking resemblance to the leaves of 
the Banana, When the Rurik, in the spring of 1817, was entering the harbour 
of Unalaschka, our friend Kadu from Ulea stood by my side on the quarter- 
deck, gazing silently at the new country to which we were taking him: its 
mournfully barren shores, its heights covered with snow. But when he saw 
this Fucus floating round the vessel, he hastily caught my hand, and exclaimed 
with rapture, “ Kaibaran! Kaibaran!” (Bananas, Bananas!) Reluctantly 
undeceived, he soon afterwards, when we landed, begged that I would plant 
some of the Cocoas which he had with him, to supply future food for the people. 
( Chamisso.) 
