Laing. — Observations on the Fucoidere. 303 



to the Chroocoeaeecr . Again the Myxomycetes are placed in the 

 vegetable kingdom ; but there is no more reason for placing 

 them there than in the animal kingdom. The position of the 

 Conjugates, too, is very doubtful, and it seems not unlikely that 

 the Zygnemece will have to be separated from the Diatoms and 

 Desmids. Fertilisation I conceive to have originated in four 

 different orders : the Fucacea, the Canobiai, the Spharoplea, and 

 the Siphonea. (These are underlined.) 



Art. XLIX. — Observations on the Fucoideas of Banks Peninsula. 



By R. M. Laing, M.A. 

 [Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 6th August, 1885.] 



Plate X. 

 The brown seaweeds must always be an interesting group of 

 plants to the botanist, on account of the exceptional facilities 

 they offer for the investigation of the phenomena of fertilisation 

 and sexual reproduction. The New Zealand genera are especially 

 attractive, because of their great diversity of form and structure. 

 The first collection of these was made by Mr. Menzies, 

 surgeon to Captain Vancouver's expedition. All his specimens 

 are from Dusky Bay, in the south-west coast of Otago. They 

 were described about the end of the last century. Prior to this 

 time, however, a few marine Alga, common to New Zealand and 

 other southern regions, had been incidentally named by previous 

 visitors to the Australasian seas. Banks and Solander had 

 roughly described one or two of the more conspicuous species. 

 The first systematic collection, however, was made between the 

 years 1821 and 1825, by.Bory, one of the naturalists of the 

 French ship Coquille. He described about a dozen species of the 

 Fueoidea from various parts of New Zealand. He was followed 

 by Messrs. Lesson and Richard, naturalists of the French ship 

 Astrolabe. They contributed three or four new species to the 

 list of those already known. A considerable number of speci- 

 mens obtained during the second voyage of the Astrolabe were 

 described by Montaigne in 1845 ; and about 1840 a very large 

 collection of New Zealand plants was made by Sir J. Hooker, 

 botanist to the Frebus and Terror expedition. The Fucoidea 

 obtained by him, to the number of about fifty, were described in 

 " Flora Novae Zelandiae." 



But by this time a large synonymy had grown up around the 

 nomenclature of the New Zealand seaweeds, partly owing to the 

 same species being described from different coasts under different 

 names, and partly owing to the independent description of 

 collections sent home to English and continental naturalists. 

 Agardh, Turner, Kuetzing, and Lamoureux had all at various 

 times described and named species of seaweeds found in the 



