35 



Perhaps they come near to A. Elliottii, but that species has a thicker smaller sublobate 

 frond often eroded above, and its filaments are smaller; but it has an erect rhizome, as also A. 

 canariensis appears to have, though we have ignored the transition from rhizome to stipes in 

 our description, and have regarded the whole as a stipes merely, since it is almost impossible to 

 distinguish the point of junction in specimens which have been so crushed in drying. The ultimate 

 branchlets of the frond-filaments may be either cylindric or torulose (fig. 98) ; or the filaments 

 may be torulose further behind the apex. They are not easy to tease out for examination 

 under the microscope being somewhat intricately interwoven and adherent. A very large 

 proportion of them are collapsed and colourless, possibly ovving to their having been collected 

 in midwinter. 



This is the only species of Avrainvillea which we have ever seen from near the West 

 coast of Africa. 



9. Avrainvillea Elliottii sp. nov. 



Syn. Avrainvillea sordida Murray & Boodle in Journ. of Bot. XXVII. 1889. p. 70 (quoad specimen 

 "Grenada, Murray".) 

 Avrainvillea sordida Murray in Journ. of Bot. XXVII. 1889. p. 238 (pro parte). 

 Avrainvillea sordida De Toni Syll. Alg. I. 1889. p. 514 (pro parte). 



Hab. Atlantic. Grenada, Morne Rouge Bay. Elliot. May, June, 1887 (Brit. Mus. spirit collection 



n° 218)! 



Plant (spirit specimens) brown, 6 — 13 cm. high, apparently solitary. Rhizome erect, 

 about 5 cm. high, 1 cm. thick, sometimes with 1 or 2 lateral swellings or thickenings (scars 

 of other stalked fronds), continued into the stipes. 



Stipes 1 — 4 cm. long, 0.6 — 1 cm. thick, slightly compressed, simple, expanding suddenly 

 into the frond. 



Frond from a usually truncate base, widely flabelliform in young plants but irregular 

 in older plants, short (3.5 — 5 cm.), wide (5 — 10 cm.), eroded above, lobed, sometimes split 

 almost to base, of medium thickness, zonate, surface minutely wrinkled, the lobes sometimes 

 divaricate and prolonging their growth. 



Frond-filaments cylindrical, sometimes slightly torulose, often brownish-yellow, rather 

 small, usually 20 — 30 p. thick, rarely 15 u. at young apices, not specially ramified or tapering 

 at apex. [Figs. 99, 100]. 



The specimens upon which this species is founded (fig. 99) are preserved in a bottle 

 labelled in Mr. Murray's hahdwriting a Avr. sordida Crn. (excl. syn.)", and being the only 

 Grenada specimens so named are obviously those cited by Murray and Boodle (loc. cit.) 

 under A. sordida as "Grenada, Murray". Mr. W. R. Elliott collected marine algae for Mr. 

 Murray after the visit of the latter to Grenada in 1886. 



The shape of the frond of A. Elliottii is very irregular. When young it has a short 

 rotundate base and spreads flabellately above with entire margin. After they have attained a 

 width of 5 cm. they begin to grow out into two or more broad main lobes, generally situated 



