Fuce(2?[ HIM ANTH ALIA. 115 



branches or receptacles with us are not more than six feet 

 in length. When dredging, in August 1849, off the Island 

 of Lismore, in Appin, I saw it growing in such abundance 

 as almost to retard the progress of the boat, for, though 

 well rooted, its floating receptacles covered the surface of 

 the water. Some of them must have been of great length. 

 The one which I took up, without any selection, measured 

 twelve feet : others, I doubt not, were much longer. In 

 CornwaU they are at times even twenty feet long. Hman- 

 tlialia is from two Greek words, of which the English name 

 sea-thongs is a translation. The fruit consists of tubercles 

 immersed in the frond, and these tubercles discharge their 

 seeds by pores, which give the thongs a spotted appearance. 

 This is remarkably the case, when, after lying on the shore 

 for some time, every pore is covered with a yellow dot, which 

 is the mucus of the plant discharged in the death-struggle 

 which goes on, when, torn from the rocks and tossed out by 

 the waves, it lies withering in the open air. Dr. Neill men- 

 tions that in the north of Scotland a kind of sauce for fish 

 or fowl, resembling ketchup, is made trom the cup-like or 

 fungus-like fronds of this sea-weed. 



