86 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



the bases and amongst the tangled roots swarm 

 thousands of the Crustacea and Radiata, whilst fish of 

 several species dart amongst the leaves and branches. 

 But it is on the sunken rocks of the outer coasts that 

 this genus chiefly prevails, and from thence thousands 

 of these trees are flung ashore by the waves, and, 

 with the Macrocystis and U Urvillea, form along the 

 beach continued masses of vegetable rejectamenta, 

 miles in extent, some yards broad, and three feet in 

 depth ; the upper edge of this belt of putrefying 

 matter is well in-shore, whilst the outer or seaward 

 edge dips into the water, and receives the accumulat- 

 ing wrack from the submarine forests throughout its 

 whole length. Amongst these masses the best algae 

 of the Falklands are found, though, if the weather be 

 mild, the stench, which resembles putrid cabbage, is 

 so strong as to be almost insufferable. The ignorant 

 observer at once takes the trunks of Lessonia, thus 

 washed up, for pieces of drift-wood, and, on one 

 occasion, no persuasion could prevent the captain of 

 a brig from employing his boat, and boat's crew, 

 during two bitterly cold days, in collecting this 

 incombustible weed for fuel, " ^ The substance of 

 the trunk is employed by the Gauchoes for knife- 

 handles, and contracts in drying into a substance 

 harder than horn. 



The third remarkable alga of the Antarctic 

 regions is U Urvillea titilis. In Kerguelen's Land its 

 enormous and weighty fronds, sometimes ten feet 

 long, and almost too heavy for a man to lift, form the 

 only shelter for the shells and soft animals, which 

 * Hooker, " Cryptogamia Antarctica," p. 152. 



