264 ALG^ INARTICULATE. [Sargassum. 



CRYPTOGAMIA ALG.E. 



Plants foliaceous, spreading or filiform, inarticulate (or rarely and 

 only apparently articulated). 



Div. I. INARTICULATE 



Fronds more or less spreading, rarely filiform, never distinctly 

 jointed. Gen. 1 — 55. 



Tribe I. Fucoide^s. 



Plants all marine, of an olive-brown or olive-green colour, be- 

 coming black on exposure to the air ; of a firm, coriaceous or ligneous 

 substance and fibrous texture, tearing with facility in a longitudinal 

 direction. Frond with a hard scutate root, furnished in many 

 species with distinct leaves. Vesicles or air-vessels generally pre- 

 sent, which are either uniform dilatations of particidar parts, or 

 distinct bodies supported on little stalks. Fructification ; tubercles 

 contained in distinct receptacles, or imbedded in the frond, and con- 

 taining dark-coloured seeds surrounded with a pellucid limbus, and 

 escaping by a terminal pore. Grev. 



1. Sargassum. Ag. Sargassum. 



Frond leaved. Leaves stalked, with a midrib. Air-vessels 

 simple, axillary, stalked. Receptacles small, linear, tuberculated 

 (mostly in axillary clusters or racemes). Seeds in distinct cells. 

 Grev. Alg. Brit. p. \.t. 1. — Name, from the Spanish sargazo, 

 applied to the floating masses of this genus, which, in the seas 

 of warmer climates, are so abundant as even to impede the pro- 

 gress of vessels. 



1. S. vulgdre, Ag. (common Sargassum); stem compressed 

 filiform pinnated, branches alternate simple, leaves linear-lance- 

 olate serrated, vesicles sphaerical on flat petioles, receptacles 

 cylindrical racemose. Ag. Sp. Alg. v. I. p. 3. Grev. Alg. Brit. 



p. 2. t. 1. — Fucus nutans, Turn. Hist. Fuc. t. 46. E. Bot. 

 t. 2114. 



Occasionally cast ashore on the Orkney islands, wafted by the 

 currents, probably from the West Indies, along with other exotic pro- 

 ductions. 



2. S. bacciferum, Ag. (berry -bearing Sargassum); stem cy- 

 lindrical filiform bipinnate, branches alternate mostly simple, 

 leaves linear serrated, vesicles serrated on cylindrical petioles. 

 Ag. Sp. Alg. v. 1. p. 6. Grev. Alg. Brit. p. 3. — Fucus bacciferus, 

 Turn. Hist. Fuc. t. 47. E. Bot. t. 1967. 



Sometimes wafted, like the last, to the Orkney islands. Shore of 

 Castle Eden Dean, Durham j Mr. W. Backhouse. 



