V. CRYPTOi\EMIACE.E. 103 



liable to some small variety in substance and ramification. The New Zealand 

 specimens are much the largest that I have seen ; but the lobes in the original 

 Californian fragment l)eing still bruader, it is probable that the specimens hereafter 

 to be brought from the latter country will surpass any now in our collections. 



1. Stenogramma interrupta, Mont. Harv. Phyc. Brit. t. 157. J- Ag. Sp. Alg. 

 %p. 391. Kiitz. Sp. Alg. p. 873. Delesseria intermpta, Ag. Sp. Alg. 2, p. 179. 

 Mo?ii. in Webb. Ot. Hisp. t. 8. Stenogramma Californka, Harv. in Bot. Beechey, p. 

 408. (Tab. XIX. C.) 



Hab. San Francisco, California, Dr. Sinclair. A fragment picked up at Key 

 West, Florida, W. H. H. (41.) (v. v.) 



Root discoid. Frond stipitate, the stipes compressed upwards and passing into 

 the cuneate base of a flabelliform, dichotomously cleft lamina, 4 — 8 or 10 inches in 

 length, and as much in expansion. Lacinice linear, obtuse, repeatedly forked ; 

 sometimes irregularly dichotomous, sometimes palmately or alternately cleft, and 

 often furnished at the edges with proliferous, oblong or forked leaflets. Barren 

 fronds, as well as those destined to produce nemathecia, are quite nerveless. In 

 fertile or conceptacle-bearing fronds, a slender pseudo-nerve runs through the cen- 

 tre of each fertile lobe, commencing just below one of the furcations, and termi- 

 nating nearly opposite to a lower fork. In this pseudo-nerve the conceptacle is 

 formed, a less or greater portion becoming thickened, dark coloured, hollow within, 

 and developing from its medullary cells very numerous nucleoli, which are densely 

 aggregated together into a linear, sausage-like nucleus. The telraspores are 

 evolved from the radiating filaments of blotch-like, dark red yiemathecia, scattered 

 irregularly on both surfaces of the frond, and originating in a transformation of 

 the cells of the cortical layer. The substance of the frond is membranaceous, 

 rather rigid below, flaccid, and often delicately thin above. The colour is a fine 

 clear pinky red. In drying, it scarcely adheres to paper. 



Our figure is taken from the original Californian specimen, now preserved in 

 Sir William J. Hooker's Herbarium, and represents the base of the frond and one 

 of the two principal segments into which it divides. This specimen is more rigid 

 in substance and darker in colour than ordinary European specimens, but an ex- 

 tensive suite from New Zealand connect it Avith the smallest and most delicate 

 varieties. My specimen from Key West is fragmentary and barren, but very like 

 some of the smaller European grown fronds. 



Plate XIX. C. Stenograjima interrupta ; the natural size. Fig. 2, the apex of 

 a fertile lobe ; 3, section through the same (the nucleus not correctly analyzed); 

 Jig. 4, spores ; the latter figures magnified. 



Y 2 



