Griffithsia.] 



ALGJE CONFERVOlDEiE. 337 



Name; 2*vpis, a basket; in allusion to the appearance of the re- 

 ceptacles. 



1. S.fHamentosa, Harv. (hairy Spyridia) — JPucusjilamentosus, 



Wulfen. — Ceramiumffiamentosum, Ag. Sp. Ahj. p. 141 — Con- 

 ferva Griffithsiana, E. Bot. t. 2312. 



Southern shores of England. Southampton, Miss Biddulph. Tor- 

 bay and Sidmonth, Mrs, Griffiths. — Stems tufted, many rising from a 

 broadly expanded disk, thick, 2— G inches high, irregularly branched, 

 cartilaginous, densely cellular wii.li an obscure appearance of articula- 

 tion ; branches beset \s ith .short, hair-like, simple or subdivided, scattered 

 ramuli. Colour a light-red, fading to dull-brown. A highly curi- 

 ous plant, with the habit and structure of Ceramium, but approaching 

 Calithumnion or Griffithsia in its fruit. It is found in the Indian and 

 Pacific Oceans, as well as in the Mediterranean and British Seas. 



63. Griffithsia. Ag. Griffithsia. 



Filaments articulated throughout, mostly dichotomous; dis- 

 sepiments hyaline. Fructification double: — 1. clustered cap- 

 sules with hyaline pericarps ; 2. roundish, gelatinous, involu- 

 crated receptacles (favellcc), including minute granules. — Named 

 in honour of Mrs. Griffiths of Torquay, Devonshire, to whose 

 numerous discoveries and accurate observations, the marine 

 botany of Great Britain is indebted for much of its present 

 advancement. 



* Branches ivhorled with ramuli. 



1. G. equisetifolia, Ag. (imbricated Griffithsia); filaments in- 

 crassated whorled with dichotomous incurved imbricated ra- 

 muli. — Conferva equisetifolia, JJillic. Conf. t. 54. E. Bot. t. 1479. 

 — G. equisetifoliaf Ag. Sj>. Alg. v. 2. p. 133. 



Abundant on the shores of England and the west of Ireland. Rare 

 in Scotland. Firth of Forth, very rare, Mr. Fatten.— 6 — 12 inches 

 high, ven robust, much branched; branches denselj clothed with 



whorls of short ramuli, gradually tapered. Colour a deep-red. The 

 fruit of this species i> involved in much uncertainty. Dillwyn describes 

 it as consisting of seeds, immersed in a pellucid jelly and Burrounded by 

 numerous filaments, which wholly envelop it. It was scattered over the 

 branches and appeared to the naked eye like rery youn Ibis 



was detected bj tin' A'"-. (J. /»'. Leathes, at Yarmouth. Mr. Borrer finds 



" little yellowish-brow n oblong bodies, each BUITOUOded b\ a pellucid 

 limbllSj Scattered plentifully on the internal face v{ the ramuli of one 



specimen." On another specimen, he observed "minute pale-pink 

 tufts, which appeared to grow, some laterally on the branches and some 



on the vcrtieillatc ramuli, whilst Others terminated small young bram Ins. 



The highest power of the microscope proved them to consii I <■! two or 

 three whorls of incurved ramuli, similar to those of the other parts oi the 

 plant, but very much more minute j to the inner side of which at the 

 dissepiments are affixed the seeds .- >, sometimes solitary, more fre- 

 quently appearing clustered. These are globular, some of them dark- 

 red throughout, without a limbus; others with a ren wide limbus, the 



colouring matter forming merely a central speck." llrr. \n litt. 



/ 



