CONFERVA FLOCCULOSA. 



C. filamentis fub-fimplicibus compreffis, minutis ; difTepimentis folutis ; 

 articulis prifmaticis, alternatim refra&is. 



C. flocculofa. Roth. Cat. Bot. I. p. 192. t. 4. f. 4. & t. 5. f. 6. Fl. Germ. III. 

 pars 1. p. 523. 



In Pools, Ditches, and Slow Streams, adhering to other Confervje, and to de- 

 caying vegetables. 



THIS fingular plant was found for the firft time in Britain by my friend 

 Jofeph Woods, junr. and myfelf, growing on decaying vegetables in a pool on 

 Hampftead Heath, fince which time I have obfervcd it in various other places. 

 Its ftructure is fo extraordinary, that notwithftanding the figures and defcriptions 

 in the Catalecta Botanica, and my own repeated obfervations, I can hardly now 

 allow myfelf to affign it a place among the perfect productions of nature. I 

 think it beft however to fubmit a figure of it to the Botanical world, and fhall be 

 happy to abide by their decifion. At firft I confidered it as C. pedtinalis 

 broken to pieces, but a little obfervation rendered that idea inadmiflable. It cer- 

 tainly has very much the appearance of a broken plant ; but J. Woods, junr. has 

 obferved it in a date figured at C. in which the joints cannot be fo difpofed as to 

 make the two parts of the line, which one might otherwife imagine contiuued 

 originally the whole length of the plant, coincide. 



It is a very final] fpecies, feldom exceeding one-fourth of an inch in length, 

 and varying in color from a pale to a greenifh brown. The filaments are rarely 

 branched ; their form is not eafily afcertained, but they have always appeared to 

 me to be very much comprefled ; and the joints, only adhering to one another by 

 fingle points, look like a firing of parallelograms united at the corners. Each 

 joint has a double line running through the middle of it, and fome very faint 



