394 University of California Publications in Botany V^^^- 6 



Thallus firmly adhering to rock, 1-2 mm. thick, of indefinite 

 expansion, consisting of small compact filaments of uniform diameter 

 perpendicular to the rock and parallel to each other, firm, not gela- 

 tinous; color dark purplish red, black when dry on the rocks; cells 

 of the filaments 3-4.5^ diam., quadrate or 2-3 times longer than the 

 diameter ; cell walls thin and firm ; conceptacles numerous, generally 

 distributed over the surface, 200-300/i. deep and flask-shaped or up 

 to SOOju, deep and cylindrical, constricted at the opening, 100-150/i, 

 wide; tetrasporangia 25-32/x long, 9-10/x diam., thin walled, perpen- 

 dicular to the inner wall of the conceptacle; tetraspores seriate; 

 paraphyses absent; antheridia and cystocarps unknown. 



Lands End, San Francisco, California, W. A. Setchell, Cypress 

 Point and Pebble Beach, Monterey County, California, Fort Point, 

 San Francisco, California, N. L. Gardner. The type is no. 188974, 

 Herbarium, University of California, from Lands End. 



Li the month of December, 1913, while collecting algae in the 

 vicinity of Pacific Grove, California, I came across extenisve areas 

 of rock at Cypress Point covered with a more or less continuous layer 

 of a red alga of the appearance of Hildehrandtia. A portion of the 

 rock ledge there is composed of decaying granite and it was easy to 

 remove specimens having a granular appearance. It was found that 

 the plant had completely invested particles of granite that had become 

 loosened, and the roughened appearance of the surface was due to 

 those small inclosed particles rather than to cystocarps which I had 

 hoped to find. The plants, however, proved to be in good tetrasporic 

 condition. Since then, in December 1915, I have visited the same 

 place and found the same plant in the usual abundance. On exam- 

 ining incrusted rocks in other localities I find that the same species 

 is quite common along the California coast and when growing on firm, 

 smooth rock becomes considerably thicker, smoother and darker 

 colored, becoming almost black when dry. I collected fine tetrasporic 

 material at Pebble Beach, Carmel Bay, and at Fort Point, San Fran- 

 cisco, and Professor Setchell has also collected material at Lands End, 

 San Francisco. The material collected by Professor Setchell has the 

 conceptacles up to 800//., or nearly a millimeter deep and quite narrow 

 and cylindrical. The material collected at Fort Point is in general 

 a little thicker than the Lands End material, but the conceptacles 

 average only about one-half as deep. Otherwise the plants around 

 San Francisco are like the southern forms. The species usually grows 

 in the upper half of the littoral belt, but in March, 1916, I found 

 plants growing on rocks near the limit of mean low tide at Moss 

 Beach, San Mateo County, California. These plants were of a 



