48 RHODOMELACEiE. v. 



22. PoLYSiPHONiA atrorubescens, Grev. ; filaments setaceous, erect, sparingly or 

 much branched, dark red, somewhat rigid ; branches long, alternate, very erect, 

 alternately decompound, naked or furnished with short, simple or multifid, scattered, 

 acute ramuli, which taper to the base and apex ; internodes of the branches twice 

 or thrice as long as broad, of the ramuli shorter than their breadth, twelve tubedj 

 the tubes frequently spirally twisted ; conceptacles broadly ovate or sub-rotund, 

 sessile, tetraspores in the ramuli. Ag. Sp. Alg. vol. 2. p. 64. Harv. Phyc. Brit. t. 172. 

 Pol. Agardliiana., Grev. Scot. Crypt. H. i. 210. Conferva atrorubescens, Dillw. t. 70. 



Hab. Little Compton, Dr. Durkee. Longbranch, New Jersey, Miss Morris, (v. v.) 



Stems densely tufted, two or three inches long in our American specimens, as 

 thick as hog's bristle, irregularly branched, not much tapered upwards ; branches 

 long and virgate, sub-simple, very erect, here and there furnished with a few alter- 

 nately multifid ramuli, which taper to the base and apex, and are thus spindle- 

 shaped. Larger specimens are often more compound. Internodes about twelve 

 tul^ed, twice as long as broad in the branches, shorter in the ramuli and toward the 

 base of the stem, multistriate, the tubes very frequently, but not always, spirally 

 twisted. Conceptacles broadly ovate, wide-mouthed, sessile near the ends of the 

 ramuli. Tetraspores of large size, in the distorted ramuli. Colour when growing, 

 a full deep-red, changing to reddish-brown in the herbarium. Substance rather 

 rigid. It does not strongly adhere to paper in drying. 



Miss Morris's specimens are in fruit, of both kinds, and have all the usual charac- 

 ters of the European plant, from which they difter merely in being less luxuriant. 

 Dr. Durkee's are not fully grown, and the tubes are straighter than usual. I see 

 no sufficient reasons for doubting that both belong to the same species. 



23. PoLYsiPHONiA Californica; flaccid, capillar}^, densely tufted ; filaments divid- 

 ing near the base into subsimple, elongate, flexuous branches, which are naked 

 below, and set with short, alternate, secondary branches above ; secondary branches 

 ]iinnate or bipinnate, the pinnules tapering to the base and apex ; internodes many- 

 tubed, those of the branches nine or ten times, of the ramuli about twice as long 

 as broad. 



Hab. Golden Gate, California, Captain N. Pike. (v. s. in herb. T. C. D.) 



Densely tufted. Filaments, so far as I can judge from the imperfectly extricated 

 specimens before me, divided near the base into several long branches. These 

 branches are four or five inches long, simple or nearly so, flexuous, capillary, bare 

 of lesser branches below and furnished above, for two thirds of their length, with 

 lateral, secondary branches from a quarter inch to an inch in length, and at 

 distances apart varying from nearly an inch to one or two lines ; the lowest most 

 distantly placed. The simplest of the lateral branches are naked for more than 

 half their length and pinnated in the remaining portion ; the more compound are 



