OBSKRVAIIONS ON THE VEGETATION OF THE ANTARCTIC SEA 2^9 



Masses of very large diatoms, one Tricciatiu»! and one C 'oictliro)i 

 were met with Of macroscopic forms, I found Spliacclaria sj)., Dcsina- 

 restia Hanwyana (one piece only), Iridca cfr. covdata (one small piece 

 with Ploca)iiiuiii Hookcri attached to it with the tops of its branches). 

 It is ])ossible, that the Spliacclaria has lived there for some time. Iri- 

 dica is a common littoral plant. The richest harvest of elittoral forms 

 was made st. 95, which was the last. The depth was 95 m., the bottom 

 sand and clay with some stones. Pieces of Desjuarestia Harvcyana 

 and anccps, one entire specimen and one piece of Lessoiiia sinnt I ans, 

 pieces of a large Iridcca, one entire Nitophylluiii, masses of Polysiplionia 

 sp., several specimens of Dclisca piilchra, Sc/iirjoncnra quercip'olia with 

 N'oung shoots, growing on lixing sponges, Plocaniiuiii /looker/, Ccraniium 

 sp., Callithauuiio7i (?) sp., Ptilota cfr. coiiflucns were brought up. I hardly 

 doubt that Polysiplionia, Scliizoiicura and Dclisca grew on the spot. I 

 cannot say anything at all about the rest. The Dcsuiarestias are so 

 common, that one can expect to find pieces of them almost everywhere. 

 At St. 7 (360 m..'), clay, I found lots of pieces of Dcsmarcstia Har- 

 vcyana. In the sand and clay from st. 78, 109 m., were small frag- 

 ments of different alga?. At st. 83, 163 one entire specimen o( Dcsma- 

 rcstia Har7'cya)ia was found, at st. 87 a couj)le of smaller forms. St. 

 79, in a depth of 479 m., stony bottom, gave one great Ploridca and 

 several smaller forms, that of course can never have lived there. 



It seems to me noteworthy, that alga^, brought up by the ch'edge, 

 ha\e not absolutely been caught at the bottom. To judge from the numer- 

 ous finds of alga} in the sand or clay in localities, where they cannot 

 live, drifting algée must be very common in the Antarctic Sea, and so 

 a drifting piece might sometimes slip into the dredge when pulled up. 



At St. 90 B, 719 — ^726 m., and 93, 625 m., the clay contained pieces 

 of algae, more or less destroyed. 



After all, my experience seems to show, that an elittoral fiora 

 exists, though probably only locally and scantih', but also that one 

 has to very careful when judging of finds in greater depths. 



The c h a r a k t e r i s t i c f o r m a t i o n s. 



Concerning the formations, I refer to the account gi\en by BOR- 

 GESEN (1. c. p. 707). Thus I get only a few formations, real compre- 

 hensive group of smaller »societies», which I will call associations, as 

 B0RGESEN does. KjELLMAN describes three formations, the formations of 

 Corallinaccce, Fucacece and Laniinariacccc . ' It is not very easy to find 



* Alg. Arct. Sea, p. 13—16. 



