265 



HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE PH^OPHYCE^E. 



Br A. H. Church. 



The following notes have been put together as summarizing the 

 progressive discovery of this remarkable race of Marine Algae in the 

 general history of botany, as also illustrating the gradualh^ increas- 

 ing interest in what must ever remain one of the most central groups 

 of the vegetable kingdom, in that it alone, in the present world, 

 affords a view of the rise and development, in the sea, of a massive 

 race of autotrophic benthic organism, from the phase of the plankton- 

 flagellate to the culminating expression of plant-forms, which in 

 point of size may bear comparison Avith the vegetation of the land. 

 These types, again, are undoubtedly the nearest in general organi- 

 zation to the races of marine algae which left the sea to pass through 

 the vicissitudes of the subaerial transmigration, to emerge as the 

 higher Flora of the Land. 



In this respect, it is interesting to note the part played by British 

 algologists, at a time when little interest was attached to the vege- 

 tation of the sea ; as also to emphasize the essential importance of 

 continued research on this isolated group of plants, rendered pecu- 

 liarly appropriate to the botanists of this country by the geographical 

 position of the British Isles. 



The subject falls naturally into several epochs, as following the 

 general progression of Botanical Science. 



I. Theophrastus to the Herbalists (300 b.c.-1623 a.d.). 



To the first naturalists of ancient Grreece, the common objects of 

 the sea-shore were just the same as they are now, in the same 

 localities, and Theophrastus (300 b.c.) records the plants he saw, 

 and the ones he had heard about from fishermen and sailors. The 

 word (pvicos (* Phycos ') was originally used to cover all marine plants, 

 including such submerged Angiosperms as Posidonia a.nd Zoster a, the 

 litmus-lichen {Roccella) growing on the rocks of Crete, and employed 

 from time immemorial as a cosmetic, as also examples of Red, Brown, 

 and Green Sea-weeds proper — e.g., a red * Sea-Palm,' the 'Oyster-Green' 

 like a crumpled lettuce ( JJIva), and more particularly the C^^stoseiras 

 (' Sea-Oak ' and the ' Sea-Fir') ard the ' Sea- Vine ' {Sargassum) ; the 

 former as miniature trees with thick trunks and branches, the latter 

 with berries like those of the currant- vine. Also he had heard from 

 sailors that at the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) the ocean-tide 

 brought in sea-weeds of marvellous size, ' about a palm-breadth ' 

 (drifted Laminaria saccJiainna) and the ' sea-leek,' growing as high 

 as a man's waist {L. digit ata forms) i. Dioscorides (a.d. 77) and 

 Plint (a.d. 79) have little more to say than record the popular 



1 Theophrastus (circa 300 B.C.), Be Historia Plnntarum, Lib. 4, cap. 7. 

 Hort (London, 1916), English Translation, vol. ii. p. 329. 



Journal of Botant, — Vol. 37. rQcTOUKR, 1019.1 u 



