ne Ohio ^ACaturalist, 



PUBLISHED BY 



The Biological Club of the Ohio Stale Uni'versity, 

 Volume VII. MARCH. 1907. No. 5. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Griggs— Cymathere, a Kelp from the Western Coast 89 



f'oOK— The Embryology of Sagittaria lancifolia L 97 



Burgess— Experiments to Test the Diflusioii of Hydrocyanic Acid Gas in Fumigating 



Houses 101 



McCampbell— The Public Drinking Cup 105 



Sterki — Fossil Land and Fresh Water Mollusca Collec'.ed in Defiance County, 110 



Ortega— Key to Ohio Locusts in Winter Condition 113 



Frank — Meetings of the Biological Club 114 



CYMATHERE, A KELP FROM THE WESTERN COAST.* 



Robert F. Griggs. 



Cymathere is a genus of the Laniinariaceae estabhshed by 

 J. G. Agardh '67 to receive the older Laminaria triplicata of 

 Postels and Ruprecht '40. Though De Toni '95 includes in it 

 Lmninaria crassijolia which has a branching holdfast, the genus 

 is monotypic. Its sole species, Cymathere triplicata, is confined 

 to the northern portion of the Pacific Ocean. It grows abundant- 

 ly at the Minnesota Seaside Station on Vancouver's Island where 

 the plants herein described were collected. 



In its habitat Cymathere is the antithesis of such kelps as 

 Postelsia and Lessoniopsis. Far from seeking the buffets of 

 the surf, it retires into secluded nooks where the surge of the 

 waves is no more than a gentle swishing to and fro. It does not 

 succeed well except in situations which are never uncovered bv 

 the tides. On this account the juvenile forms are difficult to 

 obtain by the more usual methods of collecting. Those gathered 

 by the writer were secured by picking out of a pothole, in which 

 the adult plants were flourishing, a number of stones as large as 

 could be lifted easily. Search of these with a hand lens at leisure 

 in the laboratory disclosed plants of all ages, down to the smallest 

 obtained. 



At its maximum size the narrow oblong lamina of Cvmathere 

 may reach a length of 4 meters and a breadth of 22 cm. No 

 single specimen was seen, however, in which both these extreme 

 dimensions were present. Most of the plants are quite narrow, 

 only about half as wide as the broadest, which are A-ery short 

 with plicae very much broadened and less prominent than in 

 narrower individuals. The base is cunate or rounded, narrower 

 in young specimens and broadening afterwards as Yendo '03 

 has shown to be the case in Hirome itiiJarioiJes. At the tip 



* Contributions from the Botanical Laboratory of the Ohio State University, XXIX. 



