124 GELIDIACE^. v. 



ramuli are very densely crowded, so that the branches are completely echinate with 

 them in others they are few and far between. Tetraspores zoned, lodged in pod- 

 like swellings in the middle of fertile ramuli. The capsuliferous plant (of which I 

 have not seen American specimens) has the branches everywhere clothed with 

 divaricately branched, spinous ramuli, on which the conceptacles are formed. Colour 

 a dark purple, changing to green, or occasionally into a coral red. Substance carti- 

 lao-inous and brittle when recent. In drying, it shrinks and adheres imperfectly to 

 paper. 



2. Hypnea (?) crinalls ; stem elongated, subsimple ; branches lateral, closely set, 

 virgate, very long, filiform, setaceous, attenuated, straight, having a few scattered, 

 subulate, erect ramuli ; fructification unknown. Harv. MS. in Herb. T. C. D. 



Hab. California, Dr. Coulter, (v. s. in Herb. T. C. D.) 



Stems ten to twelve inches long or probably more, as thick as hog's bristle or some- 

 what thicker, undivided, filiform, furnished throughout at intervals of two or three 

 lines with long, simple, similar branches, G — 8 inches long, about the thickness of 

 horsehair, attenuated, naked or having a few, minute, subulate, erect ramuli scattered 

 along them. Ramuli generally two or three lines apart, about a line long, erect or 

 ei-ecto-patent, sometimes copious, sometimes nearly wanting. Colour a dark brown- 

 ish purple. Substance cartilaginous. Fruit unknown. Structure rather different 

 from that of the genus, the peripheric stratum being developed into moniliform 

 strings of cellules. 



This has the external habit of Hypnea, but till its fructification shall be dis- 

 covered must remain among the doubtful species, as its structure is somewhat 

 different from the typical. Its cells do not readily expand in water, and muriatic 

 acid dissolves the membranes rapidly, so that I have not been able to obtain as clear 

 a view of the internal cells as I could wish. 



Section 2. SpiNDLiGERji. Sterile fronds intricately tufted, branches patent, alter- 

 nately decompound, and beset with thorn-like ramuli acuminated from a broad, 

 conical base ; tetrasporiferous fronds similar, having tetraspores immersed in the 

 base or swollen middle of the ramuli. 



3. Hypnea divaricata, Grev. ; intricately tufted, alternately branched ; branches 

 not projecting far beyond the tuft, spinulose throughout, less beset toward the 

 straight apices ; spines spreading on all sides, the upper ones sub-secund, patent, 

 simple or compound, acuminated from a broad base ; tetraspores lodged in tlie 

 tumid bases of the ramuli ; conceptacles three or four together on divaricate, 

 branching ramuli." /. Ag. Sp. Alg. 2, p. 448. Kiltz. Sp. Alg. p. 759. (Excl. Syn. 

 Turn.) 



Hab. On the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, Liebman,Jide J. Ag. 



