NOTES ON KELPS. 43 



The smallest fronds found are about two inches long with 

 ovate-lanceolate blades, short cylindrical stipes, and hold- 

 fasts of three or four simple hapteres. The blades in these 

 specimens are entire at their bases and possess one or two 

 coarse transverse wrinkles. Specimens a little larger show 

 small outgrowths appearing on the very base of the blade 

 and these become long lateral lobes or prolongations of the 

 blade in older specimens, making the blade decidedly 

 pinnate. 



In still larger specimens (10-14 inches long) the basal 

 margins bearing the prolongations, become involute and 

 thickened, forming two scroll-like growths at the base. As 

 the basal margins thicken, the terminal blade wears away 

 down to these thickened portions leaving them projecting like 

 two arms from the tip of the stipe and bearing the prolonga- 

 tions or sporophylls at the summits. The largest specimen 

 collected possessed a stipe about three feet long, the arms 

 were each about 18 inches long, and the sporophylls reached 

 a length of somewhat over a foot. 



Some of the fronds retain a considerable portion of the 

 blade for a long time and then resemble very closely some 

 species of Ecklonia from which however they may be distin- 

 guished by the involutions at the base of the blade. It 

 seems probable that the Ecklonia radiata referred to this 

 coast (cf. Areschoug, Obs. Phyc, Part. 5, p. 12, 1884) may 

 have been one of these young plants of Eisenia. 



Egregia Menziesii (Turn.) Aresch., as generally understood, 

 is common along the whole coast and presents a number of 

 very distinct and puzzling forms. The more northern form, 

 common about San Francisco, has the flattened axis (rhachis) 

 covered with short, linear, thickish projections whose long 

 axes are parallel to the axis of the plant. These appear also 

 upon the terminal blade but not upon the sporophylls. The 

 southern form which is plentiful about San Pedro, has the 

 rhachis and terminal blade perfectly smooth. The leaflets in 

 this form vary from simple and obovate to very much pinnately 

 dissected, the divisions finally becoming long and bristle- 

 shaped. Both shapes of sporophylls occur upon the same 

 plants, the more dissected ones being borne upon the older 



