298 THE JOUllNAL OF BOTANY 



tlmt of other marine plants i, and followed a similar course from the 

 time of Theophrastus (circa 300 B.C.) to the works of the herbalists 

 (Lohelius, 1576; Dodonseus, 1616) and the collectors of the XYIIth 

 Century (Kaspar Bauhin, npodpofjios, 1622 ; Dillenius, in Hai/s 

 Si/uopsia, 1724), and to the writings of the Linnaean school of the latter 

 part of the XVIIIth Century, as represented by the descriptions and 

 coloured illustrations of Stackhouse (1795-1801) and Dawson Turner 

 (1808-1819). 



In Theophrastus the most definite reference to a Floridean is 

 that of the "Sea-Palm." The text^ gives a good idea of the diffi- 

 culty of an early naturalist in wrestling with the morphology of a sea- 

 Aveed ; and the"^ Sea-Palm {Palma marina) became a stock article 

 with early writers. It is interesting to note that the text describes 

 the plant as (palvil, although the Greeks do not seem to hare distin- 

 guished the pinnate Phoenix from the palmate bushy Chamcerops ; as 

 also to make it quite clear that there was no allusion to a lobed sea- 

 weed like the palm of a hand : the midrib is described, and the torn 

 appeamnce of the laminae which gave the pinnate character to the 

 fronds; the latter evidently grew in tufts of leaf-like members, 

 Avhicli were not irregularly lobed and crumpled. The plant has 

 been generally identified Avith the bright red CaUophyllis laviniatn, 

 but this is certainly a mistake ^. An older view may be compared in 

 Imperato's figure '^ of the Palma marina, Avhich is nothing like the 

 CallopliylJis, but may have been inspired by a Dast/a. The plant 

 m the text obviously Avould be Delesseria sanguinea, Avith its bushy 

 tuft of torn red leaA^es, up to 10 inches long, and strongly-marked 

 mid-rib ; but D. sanguinea is not described for the Mediteri*anean, 

 And there is nothing in the yEgean nearer than B. Hypoglossum, an 

 insignificant species '^. 



"while larger forms of Ped Algte Avere included as Fucus, the 

 colour of many of them being by no means distinctiA^e ; the majority, 

 beinp- smaller types, came under the heading of Muscus marinus ; and 



^ Eistoincal Review of the Phaeophycese, Journ. Bot. 1919, p. 265. 



- " A deep sea plant, but witli a very short stem, and the branches which 

 spring from it are almost straight, and these under water are not set all round 

 the stem, like the twigs which grow from tlie branches, but extend quite flat in 

 one direction, and are uniform, though occasionally they are irregular. The 

 character of the branches or outgrowi-hs to some extent resembles the leaves of 

 thistle-like spinous plants, such as the sow-thistles and the like, except that they 

 are straight, and not bent over like these, and have their leaves eaten away by 

 the brine -. in the fact that the central stalk at least runs through the whole, 

 they resemble these, and so does the general appearance. The colour both of 

 the branches and of the stalks, and of the plant as a whole is a deep red or 

 scarlet."— Theophrastus, Eng. Trans. Hort. (1916) p. 337. 



•' Hort (loc. cit.). On the other hand there is little in the text to show 

 that it did grow in the Eastern Mediterranean ; it is the last on the list of sea- 

 plant wonders, and the account may well be based on the tales of sailors who 

 had pulled their boats up on the tide-range beyond the Pillars of Hercules among 

 Laminarians waist-high (p. 331). The only other choice is a feeble description 

 of a bilateral Dnaiin. 



■* Imperato (Naples. I!j99). DelJ' HiKforia Katvrale, p. 740. 



'"> Danish Oceanographical Exped. ' Thor' (Copenhagen, 1918) no. 5. 



