268 THE JOUE>'AL OF BOTAT«T 



was a Conferva. Linnaeus' practical knowledge of even the commoner 

 Atlantic sea-weeds was of the most meagre description, and the 

 mistakes he made are excusable. Thus ' Laminaria digitata ' is left 

 out, and the whole of the Laminarians included under L. saccharina, 

 the latter name being borrowed from an allusion to Aleukia ^. Fucus 

 was again included as the first genus of the group Algce, a sub- 

 division of the Cryptogams {Sysfema Naturce, 1785). It is true 

 that his ' Cryptogams ' also included the tree Ficvs, and the Algae, 

 Lemna ; but these minor slips were soon corrected. The essential 

 point is that the 27 species of the genus Fucus were subdivided into 

 5 sections, much as suggested by Dillenius : — 



I. Dichotomi frondescentes, 



II. Dichotomi caulescentes, • 



III. Ramosi foliis distinctis, 



IV. Ramosi fronde unita, 



Y. Fructificationibus non vesicariis, 



as 4 groups of Fucoids, and the rest. Characteristic representatives 

 of these groups are : — (1) Fucus serratus^ (2) Himanthaliay 

 (3) Sargassum, (4) Hcdidrys, (5) Laminaria, Fadina, and Chorda. 

 Out of the 27 forms, 4 in group V were Floridese. But the old arrange- 

 ment, retaining the commoner Fucoid plants in the premier position 

 was maintained ; and this sequence becomes the guide to subsequent 

 writers, who added new species to the 5 groups. Thus Hudson 

 (1762) ~ increased English forms to Fucus 45, Ulra 10, Conferva 36 ; 

 Lightfoot^ (1777) describes Fucus 43, ZJlva 12, Conferva 26. 



Under the stimulus of the Linnsean System, and the cult of the 

 Herbarium, Avith greater care in observation and collection, the addi- 

 tion of forms and descriptions proceeded steadily. Increasing interest 

 is shown in sea-weed collecting, apart from the study of flowering 

 plants, and many excellent tigm-es (Lightfoot) enabled the plants to 

 be readily identified ; the few^ drawings of Yellet (1795) "*, and a 

 good set by Stackhouse (1795) °, introducing the use of colour 

 for the first time, and stimulating enquiry as to the nature of the 

 reproductive organs (Yelley). A review of British Algae (WoOD- 

 WAED and GooDENOUGH, 1797) ^ comprises accounts of 72 species of 

 sea-weed, all classed as Fucus, now becoming a jumble of brown and 

 red forms ; and an attempt at a slightly new arrangement is interest- 

 ing, as affording the general plan subsequently emended and followed 

 by Greville and Harvey. 



Meanwhile, considerable progress had been made on the continent. 

 The honour of writing the first book on Marine Algfe alone is due to 

 Gmelix (St. Petersburg, 176S), though the illustrations were rather 

 crude ^ ; and a finer volume of coloured plates of 96 sp. was pub- 



^ Sibbald, Edinburgh (1684), Scotia illust rat a, -part ii. p. 26. 



2 Hudson, FLo7'a Anglica (London, 1762), p. 466 : no figures. 



^ Lightfoot, Flora Scotica (London, 1777), vol. ii. p. 902. 



^ Velley (Bath, 1795), Coloured fiyures of Marine Plants. 



•-• Stackhouse (Bath, 1795-1801), Nereis Britaymica. 



" Goodenough and Woodward, Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. iii. (1795), p. 84. 



' Historia Fvcorum. Gmelin, Petropoli (1768). 



