with polygonal irregular cellules. The stem is inarticulate, coated with 

 minute cellules : but it is furnished with a slender, filiform, articulated, 

 single-tubed axis ; round which is a stratum formed of many rows of large, 

 oblong, colourless cells, and these are protected externally by another 

 stratum of minute, coloured cellules. The ceramidia are about as large as 

 poppy-seed, and are formed at the apex of abbreviated, transformed ramuli, 

 generally towards the lower part of the pencil in which they occur. They 

 contain a very large tuft of spores, borne on much branched spore-threads. 

 Tetraspores have not been discovered. The substance of the stem is firmly 

 cartilaginous ; that of the branches and ramelli very soft and flaccid ; and in 

 (Irving the plant adheres firmly to paper. The colour is a dark brownish 

 or somewhat purplish red, tolerably preserved in drying. 



I have already, in the memoir above quoted, distinguished 

 the present from another Australian species of Asparagopsis to 

 which I have given the name of A. armata. There can be no 

 hesitation in pronouncing these two to be sufficiently distinct 

 from each other ; their peculiar characters being recognizable 

 at all ages. But I am by no means so confident that the pre- 

 sent will prove permanently distinct from A. Belilei, a plant 

 with which I am less familiar, and which has a very wide geo- 

 graphical range, having been found in the Mediterranean Sea, 

 in the Canaries, and at the Philippine Islands. It may therefore 

 be Australian. And indeed I collected at Western Port, and 

 have distributed as No. 243 of my Austr. Algae Exsic, a few 

 specimens that I referred to A. Belilei, and which appear to 

 be different from the present. The A. Belilei of Ner. Austr. 

 p. 88. t. 35 must be erased, the figure and description there 

 given being partly taken from Australian and partly from 

 Canary Island specimens, and a re-examination having shown 

 that the Australian portion belongs to A. armata. 



The chief characters which I suppose to distinguish my A. 

 Sanfordiana are, the great size, dark colour, much branched and 

 developed surculi, comparative length of the naked portion of 

 the stem, and the rounded tips of the tufts of ramelli. It 

 remains to be ascertained, by the examination of suites of 

 Mediterranean specimens, whether these characters be of specific 

 value. 



Fig. 1. Asparagopsis Sanfordiana, — the natural size. 2. Cross section of 

 stem. 3. Small portion of the same. 4. Ramellus, with a conceptacle. 

 5. One of the alternate divisions of a ramellus : — the latter figures more or 

 less magnified. 



