396 Transactions. — Botany. 



Distribution. — Port Nicholson {Lyall) ; the Esplanade (Wel- 

 lington), Petone (R. M. L.). 



I have specimens, which agree exactly with the above de- 

 scription (Harvey's), from Wellington Harbour, but I have not 

 seen tetraspores, cystocarps, or antheridia. The plant has not 

 been recorded hitherto since collected by Lyall. 



Genus 7. Spongoclonium (Sonder). 



Thallus upright, rounded, provided with unequally long 

 similarly branched pinnae on all sides. These produce filamen- 

 tous pinnules, which form a spongy network covering the plant. 

 The lower cells of the pinnae send out rhizoids, which, becoming 

 decurrent, clothe the main stem and branches with a gradually 

 thickening covering. Sporangia shortly stalked, and divided 

 into tetrads attached singly or in series to the free ends of the 

 pinnules. Antheridia in closely packed tufts, similarly arranged 

 to the sporangia. Cystocarps scattered over the surface of the 

 thallus in large numbers, terminal on branches so short that 

 they appear seated on the network of the thallus. The thallus 

 filaments are more richly developed under the cystocarps, so as 

 to enclose them on the underside, but there is no cuplike 

 involucre. The spore-mass consists of 1 gonimoblast, which 

 divides into numerous successively formed rounded very small 

 gonimolobes. Gonimolobes tightly closed with all cells giving 

 rise to carpospores. 



(The cystocarps are unknown or insufficiently described in 

 the New Zealand species, but there can be but little doubt that 

 they are rightly inserted here.) 



1. Spongoclonium pastorale, sp. nov. (R. M. L.). Plate 

 XXVIII., fig. 2. 



Thallus dark-brown, sometimes blackish. 3-6 cm. high, irre- 

 gularly alternately pinnate. Main branches rather few, flexuose. 

 Rachis and pinnae coated with decurrent rhizoids. Pinnules 

 flexuose, woven into an inextricable network. Terminal pin- 

 nules patent, often divaricating, subdistichous (though 3 or 

 4 occasionally arise from one cell), sparingly branched, but 

 sometimes bearing pectinate ramuli on the upper side. The 

 ends of the pinnules often crooked like a shepherd's staff, or 

 sharply bent. Cells of pinnules about 80ft long and 50 /x broad, 

 of the axis about 200 u long and 60-80 ju broad, those of the 

 pinna' similar but rather smaller. Tetraspor< b numerous in 

 series on the pinnules, divided into tetrads. Cystocarps and 

 antheridia unknown. 



Distribution. — Wvcliffe Bay (Otago Peninsula), (/'. M. />., 

 ./. C. S. !). 



