NEW OR ORITICAIi BRITISH MARINE ALG^. 435 



larger cells, and in the basal cells showing no tendency to penetrate 

 between the cells of the host-plant. 



6. Epicladia Flustr^ Eeinke var. Phillipsii, nov. var. Fronds 

 dark grass-green, endozooic in the gelatinous outer coating of 

 Alcyonidium flelatinosum. Patches indefinite in outline, confluent, 

 eventually covering the entire surface of the host. Cells of the free 

 filaments cylindrical, much longer than broad, usually 6-18 /x long 

 by 3-9 fj. wide, those of the central pseudo-parenchymatous portion 

 of the layer polygonal and nearly isodiametric, 3-12 [m in diameter. 

 Hab. : Bangor, March, 1896, Prof. R. W. Phillips. 



In this variety the cells of the free filaments are much longer 

 and more slender than in the typical form of the species, and the 

 patches, instead of being small and isolated, are more or less ex- 

 tensive and confluent, finally covering the surface of the host, to 

 the exclusion of everything else, with its dark green fronds. The 

 variety is always either entirely or to a very large extent endozooic, 

 growing immersed in the gelatinous outer coatings of the host. It 

 may be well to say that the typical form is by no means always 

 epizooic, as was at one time supposed, but frequently grows more 

 or less deeply immersed in the substance of the host. 



7. GoMONTiA MANXiANA Cliodat in Bull, de I' Herb. Boissier t. v. 

 p. 715. This species, which was found by Dr. Chodat in the 

 exterior layer of shells gathered last year near Castletown, in the 

 Isle of Man, is said to have fronds like those of Siphonodadus volu- 

 ticola Hariot, i. e. the branches are not separated from the cells, 

 from which they arise by a basal septum. The characters which 

 separate this species from Gomontia pohjrhlza Born, et Fl. are the 

 more slender habit, the acute apices of the branches, the swollen 

 joints, and the more slender differently shaped sporangia. 



I have frequently gathered at Cumbrae and elsewhere specimens 

 of a Gomontia which agrees well with M. Chodat's description of 

 G. mayixiana, indeed this is the form commonly met with on the 

 west coast of Britain. The shape and size of the sporangia and 

 the form of the apical cells of Gomontia palijrhiza are, however, 

 liable to so great variation that they cannot be safely relied on as 

 specific marks, and I am, therefore, inclined to think that G. 

 manxiana may, after all, turn out to be nothing more than a form 

 of the very variable G. polyrhiza. 



FUCOIDE^. 



8. Ph^ostroma ^quale Kuck. Bemerk. zur Maiin. Algeveg. vfin 

 Hehjoland ii. p. 385 {aus Wissenscha/tliche Meeresxintersxichumjen, 

 heraiisgegehen von der Kommission zur Untersuchung der Deutschcn 

 Meere^ &c., Neue Folge, Band ii. Heft 1). Strehlonema aquale Oltm. 

 The late Mr. T. H. Buffham was the first to notice this plant, 

 which he described as the plurilocular sporangia of (Vior(^;y?7»»/ ; 

 it is only justice to his memory, however, to say that his prepara- 

 tions did not show the endophytic filaments of the parasite, and 

 were in other respects defective, so that his mistake cannot be 

 wondered at. Dr. Oltmann first recognized tbe plant as a true 



2 F 2 



