CONFERVA MULTICAPSULARIS. 



C. filamentis minutis repentibus olivaceis, ramis erectis fimpliciufculis 

 brevibus, apicem verfus incraffatiset capfuliferis ; capfiilis congeflis 

 fphxricis. 



On clayey banks in high and expofed fituations about Swanfea. 



FOR the difcovery of this Angular Conferva I am indebted to my friend 

 William Wefton Young, who found it growing on feveral parts of the Town- 

 hill, near Swanfea: we have fince detected it together in other places in the 

 neighbourhood. It grows on dry clayey banks, in expofed fituations, forming 

 fmall irregular patches, which bear a confiderable refemblance to fome of the 

 lichens. The color is a dark olive, often approaching to black, and forms a 

 pleafing contraft with the light green of C. velutina, among which it is frequently 

 found; the filaments are repent, thickly entangled, and very minute, fo that it 

 is impoffible to afcertain their length ; they throw out a number of fucker-like 

 branches, from which numerous fliort upright branches arife, for the moft part 

 fimple, but fometimes once or twice branched ; thefe are thickeft towards their 

 apices, and are thus frequently divided into two or more fliort palmated fegments, 

 on each of which a capfule is placed. The joints are very long in the creeping 

 (terns ; they vary in the upright branches, being lhorteft at the bafe and longeft 

 towards the fummit. When the juices from age have collapfed, or been dried 

 up, the joints appear colorlefs, and filled with minute, ovate, pellucid granules, 

 which I have alfo obferved in others of the fpecies that grow out of water. The 

 capfules are difpofed at the end of the upright fhoots without any difcernible 

 crder: fometimes they are folitary, fometimes in clutters, and, not unfrequently, 

 two or three may be I'een apparently iffuing from each other ; in moft of them a 

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