Ser. RHODOSPEitMEiE. Fam. Ceramiacea. 



Plate XXXVI. 



BALLIA UOBERTIANA, Han 



Gen. Char. Frond filiform, rigid, dendroid; the stem and branches co- 

 vered with a plexus of hair-like, short fibres ; ramuli pellucidly arti- 

 culate, pinnately decompound. Fructification: 1, involucrate favella 

 terminating short pinna?, and containing numerous angular spores ; 

 2, tetraspores, borne on the hair-like fibres of the stem and branches. 

 — Ballia (Harv.), in honour of Miss Anne E. Ball, a distinguished 

 Irish algologist. 



Frons filiformis, rigida, dendroidea ; caulis ramique plexn filorum brevium quasi 

 hirsuti ; ramuli pellucide articulati, pinnatim compositi. Fruct. : 1,/avellce 

 involucratce in pinnula abbreviata terminates, spoi'as numerosas angulatas 

 foventes ; 2, tetraspores triangule divisej, infills caulinis evolutce. 



Ballia Robertiana ; penultimate branchlets (or plumules) incurved, ob- 

 long, opposite, but alternately very unequal; one very minute, pinnate 

 or vaguely ramulous, with curved ramuli ; the other elongate, bipin- 

 nate, the pinnae oval in outline, pinnules opposite, incurved, very 

 close. 



B. Robertiana ; plumulis incurvis oblong is oppositis inter se alterne valde ince- 

 qualibus ; una pusilla pinnata v. vage multifida ramulis infiexis ; altera 

 elongata bipinnata basi (demum) ramulis incurvis vage divisis fructiferis sti- 

 pata, pinnis ambitu ovatis, pinnulis oppositis incurvis creberrimis. 



Ballia Robertiana, Harv. in Tayl. An. Nat. Hist, for May, 1855 ; Alg. Exsic. 

 Austr. n. 500. 



Callithamnion ballioides, Sond. in Linn. v. 25. p. 674. 



Hab. Thrown ashore from deep water. Guichen Bay, Dr. F. Mueller. 

 Port Fairy, W. H. H. South Port, V.D.L., Mr. C. Stuart. 



Geogr.. Distr. Shores of South Australia, and Victoria. Tasmania. 



Descr. Root an expanded disc. Fronds tufted, 3-6 inches long, distichous, 

 decompound-pinnate, the main branches and all their lesser divisious oppo- 

 site, patent, subdistant. The stem and branches are everywhere densely 

 clothed with short, rigid, incurved, irregularly ramulose, hair-like filaments, 

 which throw out rootlets that are woven together round the branches in an 

 inextricable plexus. The ends of the larger branches and all the smaller 

 ones are pellucidly articulate, the articulations cylindrical, not contracted at 

 the joints or obovate (as in B. callitricUci), and are distichously plumulate 

 throughout ; the plumules, at first sight, appear to be alternate, and if we 

 limit the name to the bipinnate ramuli, they certainly are so ; but opposite 

 to each will be found a minute, more or less pinnated ramulus, which must 



