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V. A Systematic and Structural Account of the Genus Turbinaria, Гат. 
By Етнег баве Barton. (Communicated бу D. Н. Scorr, Ph.D., F.L.S.) 
(Plates LIV. & LV.) 
Read 5th March, 1891. 
THE genus Turbinaria was founded by Lamouroux in 1825 (Dictionnaire classique 
d'Histoire Naturelle, tom. vii. p. 71). Не furnished no generic diagnosis and no figure, 
but it is plain enough that his generic type is the Fucus (urbinatus of Linneus. The 
first record, however, of this alga is earlier than Linnzeus, and occurs in Sir Hans Sloane’s 
‘Natural History of Jamaica,’ A.D. 1707, p. 58, where he describes the “ Fucus marinus 
vesiculas habens membranis extantibus alatas," and figures it on tab. 20. fig. 6. Sir 
Hans says, “ This has a dark coloured, tough, roundish, crooked Stem, about nine Inches 
high, having many crooked Twigs very thick set, with Bladders full of Air. The Bladders 
themselves are roundish, or rather Triangular, having an extant foliaceows membrane 
at top encircling it, and three other extant ale underneath, making it look Triangular, or 
something of the shape of a Funnel, being pyramidal, and of a dark brown Colour, or 
blackish when dry’d like Glew, smelling strong of the Sea, and tasting salt like other 
Fuci. Besides it has several round small Protuberancies over its surface, supposed to be 
the Seed. It grows on the Rocks, covered with the Sea, on all the Coasts of this Island.” 
The excellent figure quoted leaves the reader in no doubt as to the identity of the form. 
I have, however, been permitted to examine the very specimen figured by Sir Hans, in 
his herbarium in the British Museum. Rumph, in the * Herbarium Amboinense,' vi. 
p. 185, mentions a seaweed which is in all probability a Turbinaria, but it is impossible 
to speak with any degree of certainty as to the species. The Fucus turbinatus of Linnæus 
is the next record, and a perusal of the description shows that the plants are at all events 
congeneric with Sloane's. Linnzeus quotes Sloane, but it will be seen from the systematic 
account which follows that they were dealing with different species. Linn:eus's type, 
preserved in his herbarium, enables me to decide this point. We next find mention 
made of this type in the Fucus conoides of Forskál (Flora ZEgyptiaco-arabica, p. 192). 
An authentic specimen of Forskál's exists in the British Museum, and from an examination 
of it, I am enabled to decide that it constitutes a third species of this genus. We next 
соте to Dawson Turner's Fuci, in which he quotes‘the Fucus turbinatus of Linn:eus, and 
adds a var. В, ornatus, to it. Most unfortunately Dawson Turner, to judge by his excellent 
figure and by his specimens preserved in the Kew Herbarium, was dealing with a different 
plant from Linneus. His Fucus turbinatus, which he believed to be identical with 
Linnzeus’s, is in point of fact the same as the Fucus conoides of Forskàl. Subsequent 
writers, quoting Dawson Turner, have thus been misled, and I have ventured, from a 
comparison of these authentic specimens, to place them in what I conceive to be their 
proper positions. Lamouroux, who founded the name Turbinaria, the elder Agardh, 
Bory de St. Vincent, and others next attacked the subject and each other; at all events 
SECOND SERIES.— BOTANY, VOL. Ш. 2u 
