[Reprinted from ToRREYA, Vol. 14, No. 6, June, I9I4 | 



SOME MIDWINTER ALGAE OF LONG ISLAND SOUND 



By Marshall A. Howe 



For reasons that are more or less obvious the marine algae of 

 the coasts of New York and New England have received little ; 

 attention from collectors during the coldest months of the year. 

 Mr. F. S. Collins once published in Rhodora* a brief paper on 

 " Seaweeds in Winter ", with a specific allusion to his experiences 

 "at a point on the shore of Long Island Sound" on an intensely 

 cold first day of January. Professor Bradley Moore Davis has 

 more recently in his important contributions to the " Biological 

 Survey of the Waters of Woods Hole and Vicinity " (p. 474) given 

 a list of fifty-four species of algae "known to be present in the 

 cold-water sublittoral formation of the winter and spring" and 

 he remarks that the water temperatures for this formation prob- 

 ably average under 35 F. for at least two and a half months. 

 Exact dates are not given, but it seems to be implied that any 

 one of the fifty-four may be found during the coldest weeks of 

 the year. A chart illustrating the algal flora of Spindle Rocks at 

 Woods Hole on December 30, 1904, includes eighteen species and 

 another for March 17, 1905, shows ten species. In the detailed 

 list of the species of the Woods Hole region there are remarks on 

 the seasonal distribution of each, such as "summer," "summer, 

 undoubtedly at other seasons," "summer, undoubtedly through- 

 out the year," "at all seasons," etc. In a recent interesting 

 paperf on "The Seasonal Life-Cycle of some Red Algae at Woods 

 Hole" Professor I. F. Lewis outlines the life-history of several 



* 2: 130-132. 1900. 



t Plant World 17: 31-35. 1914. 



97 



