154 



This variety occurs as mentioned in coral-reefs and similar 

 localities with fresh sea-water and some motion of the sea. On 

 the coral-reefs e. g. Long Reef on the north side of St. Croix it 

 seems only to reach a small size (Fig. 123). The assimilators become 

 here seldom higher than 3 — 5 cm as the specimen delineated here 

 shows, which was found growing between Corallinacex. On the 

 landing bridge at Christiansfort on St. Jan, a locality a little more 

 sheltered even if we can have some surge, the erect shoots reach 

 a length of about 10 cm and wave to and fro following the motion 

 of the sea; fig. 124 shows a specimen from here. It can nevertheless 

 reach a still more considerable size. A specimen from the Bermuda 

 Isles in the herbarium of M™® Weber-van Bosse and collected 

 by Dr. M, A. Howe had feet-long assimilators. It was deter- 

 mined as C. racemosa var. Isetevirens but in my opinion it belongs 

 to var. occidentalis. 



To the var. Isetevirens I have referred a large vigorous plant 

 (Fig. 125) which occurs in a restricted locality in the Lagoon of 

 Christianssted in rather considerable quantity. It grows in a very 

 sheltered place at a depth of about two meters in soft bottom of 

 mixed sand and mud. The water here seems always to be 

 filled with mud and is therefore quite unclear (on each of my 

 three visits to the West Indies I have visited the locality 

 several times and always found it so muddy that is was im- 

 possible to see the bottom). The erect shoots reach a length 

 of up to 16 — 18 cm and are covered with ramuli placed in several 

 rows but rather open; these are cylindrical-clavate being evenly 

 thicker towards the apex. The rhizome is thick and creeps in and 

 on the soft mud in which it is fastened by vigorous roots. The 

 plant is of a pale-green colour somewhat glassy, translucent and 

 of a flabby consistency. 



With the figure oi Chaiwinia laetevirenshj Kutzing (Tab. phyc. 

 Bd. 7, tab. 12) my specimens have a great resemblance; often the 

 ramuli are however, as the illustration given here shows (Fig. 125), 

 somewhat more openly placed than in the figure of Kutzing; but 

 specimens are to be found which quite agree with this. On the other 

 hand the figure of Montagne has more and more closely placed 

 ramuli than the West Indian specimens and the same is also the 

 case by comparison with a little piece of an original specimen 

 from the herbarium of Montagne collected at »ile de Toud«, which 

 is to be found in the herbarium of M'"^ Weber-van Bosse. The 

 ramuli in my specimens are more scattered and the erect shoots 

 and most probalDly the whole plant longer than that of Montagne, 



