THE CORALLINACEAE OF THE SIBOGA EXPEDITION 



BY 



A. WEB ER-VAN BOSSE and M. FOSLIE 



Eerbeek. Tvondhjem. 



With XVI plates and 34 textfigures. 



INTRODUCTION 



BY 



A. WEB ER— van bosse. 



No algae excite such general interest as calcareous algae. They are not only a delight 

 and at the same time a constant puzzle to botanists, but also to geologists who are compelled 

 to study them, for they meet them in various formations in layers of enormous thickness, tor 

 instance in the Scandinavian Baltic-silurian district; near Syracuse, where the renowned Latomiae 

 are quarries in old Lithothamnion-banks; in the "Leithakalke" near Vienna or in the Dolomites. 

 Zooloeists ag-ain findins: them in a living state, will fain ask what these brilliant coloured 

 organisms are, that are often found in such enormous masses in tropical, temperate and arctic 

 regions ; either branched and forming knolls perhaps as big as or bigger than a man's hst, and 

 o-iving shelter to innumerable animals; or crustlike, and covering corals, stones and other algae 

 with thin or thick crusts. 



The study of calcareous algae is, like all algological study, one of the younger branches 

 of botanical science. In 1S16 Lamarck l ) in his renowned book "Histoire des Animaux sans 



1) LAMARCK. Hist. nat. d. Animaux sans vertèbres. Paris 1S16, t. II, p. 203. 

 SIBOGA-EXPEDITIE LXl. 





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