284 ALGiE INARTICULATE, [Polyides. 



which are imbedded roundish clusters of wedge-shaped seeds, 

 surrounded with a pellucid border, (and globular extremely 

 minute granules, imbedded in swollen branches below the ex- 

 tremities of the fronds. Griff.) Grev. Alg. Brit. p. 69. t. 11. — 

 Name <ro) v, many, and ifoxform or appearance; but, as Dr. Gre- 

 ville justly remarks, scarcely applicable in the present instance, 

 as the only well known species is tolerably constant to all its 

 characters. 1 



1. P. rotundus, Grev. (cylindrical Poly ides). Grev. Alg. 

 Brit. p. 70. t. 11. — P. lumbricalis, Ag. Sp. Alg. v. I. p. 192. — 

 Furcelluria rotunda, Lyngb. — Fucus rotundus, Gmel. — Turn. 

 Sijn. Fuc. p. 309, Hist. Fuc. t. 5. E. Bot. t. 1738.— Fucus 

 radiatus, Gooden. etWoodw. in Linn. Trans, v. 3. p. 202. — Fucus 

 fastigiatus, Linn. Herb, (according to Turner). 



On the south and eastern shores of England, not unfrequent. Rare 

 in Scotland. Dumfries and Firth of Forth. Appin, Capt. Carmichael. — 

 Root a flattened disk. Fronds 4 to 6 or 8 inches long, dark purplish- 

 brown, the dichotomous branches fastigiate, with the angles of the dicho- 

 tomies rather obtuse, their extremities forked, acute. Besides the more 

 common spongy fructification of this genus, Mrs. Griffiths has commu- 

 nicated specimens from Sidmouth with " rather long, swollen branches, 

 beneath the apices containing an immense quantity of globular, ex- 

 tremely minute seeds, of a pale purplish colour, amongst the fibres of 

 which the substance is composed." — So closely is this plant allied in 

 habit to the Furcellaria fastigiuta, that it is much to be regretted they 

 cannot be retained in the same Genus. 



Tribe IX. Florideje. 



Plants all marine, of a purplish-red or fine rose-colour, seldom 

 changing much by exposure to the air ; of a coriaceous, carti- 

 laginous or membranaceous substance and cellular texture, often 

 reticulated. Frond fiat, compressed or cylindrical, with or without 

 a midrib ; sometimes furnished with distinct leaves or foliaceous 

 expansions. Fructification often of two kinds ; the first, sphairi- 



1 The curious spongy fructification was, indeed, misunderstood by Capt. 

 Carmichael, and considered to be a distinct and parasitic^4^a. I tear, from this cir- 

 cumstance, rather than from any other, my excellent friend, Dr. Greville (than 

 whom no one was ever more ready to do justice to the merits of other Botanists) 

 has been led to an erroneous estimate of that gentleman's character, when he says 

 " Capt. Carmichael was remarkable rather as an indefatigable collector than as a 

 correct observer of plants." — As an accurate observer of nature, in general, this re- 

 served but highly talented individual's publicly known by his <' Account of the 

 island of Tristan d'Acunha " given in the 13th vol. of the Transactions of the 

 Linnaan Society, and bv his " Journal" which lately appeared in the «• Memoirs 

 of his life," written by the Rev. Colin Smith, in the 1st and 2d vols, of the "Bo- 

 tanical Miscellany." As an acute and profound observer in detail, he is perhaps 

 at present only known to myself by a most extraordinary collection of the mi- 

 nutest of Nature's works, as displayed in the vegetable creation: and amplejus- 

 tice, it is hoped, will be done to his memory in the sheets of the present volume. 

 So that instead of expressing our surprise at his having fallen into errors while 

 studying this most difiicult tribe of plants, the only wonder is, that, in an obscure 

 corner of the coast of Argyleshire, deprived of access to books, cut off from all 

 society congenial to his feelings by high mountains on one side and the stormy 

 billows of the Atlantic on the other, he should have committed so few errors, 

 while recording so many and such novel discoveries. 



