460 CAPE ALG.E. 



sent to Prof. Schmitz by Dr. Becker from the Kowie. It is the 

 tetrasporic form of the Port Alfred plant. Prof. Schmitz had 

 queried it as a variety of G. pistillata. This form has not yet been 

 recorded south of the equator, and on geographical grounds some 

 phycologists might prefer to regard this as a new species or variety ; 

 but I do not see sufficient reason to do this. 



Phylloplwra diversifolia Suhr. Major Eeinbold kindly sent me 

 a plant under this name from Herb. Lehmann, marked "secundum 

 Herb. Drege." It is a fragment of CJuEtavfiium (irnatum J. Kg., and 

 as the description by Suhr of P. diver si folia in Flora, 1840, 262, 

 answers to this plant, I suspect that Phyllophora diversifolia Suhr is 

 a synonym for L'lmtamjium ornatum J. Ag. 



Spyridia glomerulifera Bracebridge Wilson MS. = Thamno- 

 CARPUS ? GLoiiuLiFERUs J. Ag. Cape Morgan, Flanagan ! 



Myriophylla Beckeriana Holmes. Kowie, Becker ! 



Desmia Lyngb. Prof. Schmitz (Syst. Uebers. d. bisher bek. 

 Gatt. d. Flor., Flora, 1889, 454, and Eiuil. Bot. Jahrh. Bd. xxi. 1895, 

 168) drops the name of Desmia and adopts Chondrococcus, and gives 

 in the latter reference as his reason that Desmia Lyngb. was a genus 

 of brown algae which included by chance one species of Florideo',, 

 viz. D. Hornemanni Lyngb. The genus Desmia was insufficiently 

 described by Lyngbye, when he founded it in 1819, in his Tentamen 

 Hydroph. Dan. 33; and Prof. J. G. Agardh, in his Spec. Alg. ii. 

 pt. 2, 639, emends the characters of the genus, but calls it Desmia 

 J. Ag. MS. This was pubhshed in 1852, but in 1847 Kiitzing had 

 described his genus Chondrococcus (Bot. Zeit. 1847, 23), which 

 included Sphairococcus Lambertii of Suhr (= D. Hornemanni). Prof. 

 Schmitz therefore gives priority to Kiitzing's name as opposed to 

 Desmia of J. G. Agardh. 



Chondrococcus Hornemanni Schmitz (= Desmia Hornemanni 

 Lyngb., Sphairococcus Lambertii Suhr, Chondrococcus Lambertii Kiitz., 

 non Fucus Lambertii Turn.). Grunow (Voyage of Novara, Bot. Theil. 

 i. 84) doubts whether this species is identical with Sphcerococcus Lam- 

 bertii Kiitz., and later Schmitz (in Engl. Bot. Jahrb. Bd. xxi. 1895, 

 171) considers them to be distinctly different species. I have 

 examined the plants collected by Drege and Ecklon at the Cape 

 under the name of S. Lambertii and S. Lambertii var. gelatinosa 

 Suhr, which Major Eeinbold has been so kind as to lend me. 

 These plants are described in Flora, 1835, 728. Grunow, who has 

 not seen Suhr's variety, queries it as identical with Desmia Horne- 

 manni; I have not seen an authentic specimen of the latter, but 

 Suhr's variety agrees entirely with Lyngbye's figure and descrip- 

 tion, so far as it goes, of D. Hornemanni. Prof. J. G. Agardh, 

 however, has seen authentic specimens of both D. Hornemanni and 

 S. Lambertii, and finds them identical (Spec. Alg. ii. 642). In the 

 British Museum there are forms of this plant ranging from the very 

 narrow thallus corresponding with Lyngbye's jDlate of D. Horne- 

 manni through all grades up to a large form of iS'. Lambertii. A 

 . careful examination of these plants leads to the inevitable conclusion 

 that no form is worthy even of being ranked as a variety, for no one 



