132 Dwellers of the Sea and Shore 



ways, the most beautiful forms of plant life. These 

 are the red alg^. 



Although red is their prevailing color, they exist in 

 hues ranging from a delicate pink to deep purple, and 

 these sundry shades, ordinarily the most pleasing of 

 the spectrum, seem to acquire an unwonted beauty in 

 the filmy or filamentous or ribbonlike structures of 

 some of these seaweeds. Often a profuse branching 

 occurs, and the plants resemble mosses or ferns. But 

 such mosses, such ferns ! Nature has no parallel, in 

 any higher plant, for tint or texture. This red color, 

 by the way, is only a mask. In spite of its predom- 

 inance, there exists in these plants a large amount of 

 chlorophyll, the green coloring matter that character- 

 izes Ulva and the higher forms of vegetation, and 

 that by some subtle alchemy converts the sunlight into 

 plant food. 



All red seaweeds are anchored forms. Moreover, 

 as I have pointed out, they are particularly identified 

 with the deepest waters in which algae will grow. But 

 it by no means follows that they are restricted to the 

 deeper parts; they are, in truth, to be found living as 

 high as the tide marks. The numbers and species, how- 

 ever, grow fewer as the higher levels are reached. 

 This latter observation also may well be applied to 

 their range as it extends northward; for they are es- 

 sentially plants of temperate and tropical seas. In this 

 connection mention of the corallines will not be out 

 of place. This remarkable group of seaweeds, mostly 

 displayed in the warm waters of tropical shores, se- 

 cretes so great an abundance of lime in the cell walls 

 that the plants become deeply incrusted and resemble 



