ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 701 



Laminaria saccharina in Cawsand Bay, Cornwall. It is distinguished 

 by the size of the ascocysts and plurilocular sporangia, which measure 

 30-.50X8-12 /A and 40-50 X 6 /a respectively. The author finds that 

 A. affinis, though a sharply defined species, is found to vary in certain 

 particulars : (1) the form of the basal disk ; (2) the size and form of 

 the sporangia ; {?>) the presence or absence of erect filaments. Hecato- 

 nema glohosiim Batters is recorded from Swanage, the only previous 

 British record being from the Island of Cumbrae. A new variety, namm, 

 is described and interesting notes made on the species and its systematic 

 position. H. diffusum was found at Swanage on Rhodymeiiia jmlmata, 

 Ectocarpus Padbm Sauv. and StreUonema voluhUe Thur. are discussed, 

 and a plant is referred doubtfully to the latter species. 



Algae from the Indian Ocean and China Sea.*— A. D. Cotton 

 publishes notes on ten species of marine algai in the Kew Herbarium, 

 two of which he describes as new. One is Scinaia complanata 

 (= S.furcellata Biv. forma complanata Collins ms. in Phyc. Bor. Amer., 

 No. 8;-56). It is here recorded from Japan (Enoura, Saido !)). The 

 other novelty is EaptUota Fergusonii from Ceylon (Pantura, Ferguson, 

 No. 20), which is fully described and figured. 



Alalia esculenta.f — F. Borgesen writes an interesting note on the 

 question whether Alar la esculenta sheds its lamina periodically or not. 

 He points out that Harvey, Areschoug, Kjellman, Wille and Reinke 

 state that the frond falls off at certain seasons and is replaced by a new 

 one. On the other hand, Phillips so long ago as 1896 mentioned that 

 an intercalary growth takes place in Alaria in the same region as in the 

 Laminar ias, and that this growth is continuous in Alaria, while in 

 Laminaria it is periodic. Borgesen has maintained the same view as 

 the result of his observations in the Faeroes, and his conviction is 

 further strengthened by a letter sent to Ostenfeld on the subject 

 by Rasmussen of the Faeroes High School. That gentleman has 

 •carefully watched the formation of the new leaves in Alaria, and he 

 writes as follows : " They do not shed them like the Laminaria species, 

 but the leaf continues its growth in the limit between stalk and leaf ; 

 here the midrib is always fresh. On a coast so exposed as this one the 

 greater part of the long lamina is worn away during the winter and the 

 growth is also rather slow in the months of Nov.-Jan." The author is 

 therefore quite convinced o^ the accuracy of his own and of Phillips' 

 observations for the Faeroese and British coasts respectively, and he sur- 

 mises that the same method of growth will be found in Alaria esculenta 

 wherever it may be found. 



Colpomenia sinuosa.| — li. Mangin writes a note on the serious 

 invasion of the oyster beds on the French shores by this alga, which has 

 now penetrated from Morbihan, where it was first found in the Channel, 

 to Belle-Isle, Quiberon, Cherbourg, Gatteville, and St. Vaast. These 

 algge are spherical or ovoid, solid when young, later hollow and filled 

 Avith water. They may attain the size of a hen's egg or even of a fist. 



* Kew Bull , No. 7, 1907, pp. 260-4 (1 pi.), 

 t Bot. Tiddsk., xxviii. (1907) pp. 191-202. 

 X C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, Ixii. (1907) pp. 793-5. 



