LaixCt. — On Lessonia variegata. 305 



pendulous foliage. Leaves 2ft. to 3ft. long, lin. to 2in. broad, 

 linear-lanceolate, toothed, older sinuate." 



Now, the only well-defined habitat given for this plant in 

 New Zealand is Cook Strait ; and a search along the northern 

 shores of the Strait, in the neighbourhood of Wellington, 

 reveals a Lessonia certainly, but one quite different in form 

 from this. It has no massive trunk, but in the older plants 

 from twenty to thirty stems about the thickness of a man's 

 thumb spring from the rhizoid, and the fronds when in the 

 v^ater are not pendulous, but approximately vertical. More- 

 over, it occurs immediately below low-water mark, and not, 

 as described in the "Flora Antarctica," vol. ii., p. 457, 

 " always far below low-water mark." The leaves, in general 

 shape and external characters, correspond well with those of 

 the South American forms of L. fuscescens, as described in the 

 "Flora Antarctica" {loc. cit.) ; but the other characters are 

 certainly sufficient to differentiate it, though in all probability 

 Hooker and Harvey have confused it with L. fuscescens. As 

 our New Zealand form is bulky, it is likely that Harvey did 

 not see a complete specimen, but identified the species from 

 the leaves and a few pieces of the stem alone. 



J. G. Agardh, on the other hand, in his list of New Zea- 

 land seaweeds (" De Algis Novae-Zealandige Mariuis," p. 6), 

 includes only one species of Lessonia — viz., L. variegata, J. 

 Ag., Mscr. — and gives, on the authority of Berggren, Ly all's 

 Bay and Hokianga as its habitats. He adds, as synonyms, 

 Lessonia nigrescens {partivi), Bory, and Lessonia fuscescens, 

 Fl. Nov. Zel., p. 217. To the latter synonym he attaches a (?). 

 Unfortunately, however, he gives no synopsis of his new spe- 

 cies, but simply shows that it is to be readily distinguished from 

 others of the genus by the structure of the fronds. He states 

 that he has only seen a few specimens, and it is probably on 

 this account that he refrains from giving a specific description. 

 What he says, however, is sufficient to identify his Lessonia 

 variegata with the plant so common on the Strait in the 

 neighbourhood of Wellington, and to which Hooker errone- 

 ously refers as L. fuscescens. Our plant muse therefore be 

 regarded as undescribed — at least, as far as New Zealand is 

 concerned. Agardh states (loc. cit.) that it is also found on 

 the Chilian coast, but how far it has been confounded with, or 

 is distinct from, the several species of the genus found there, I 

 must leave for others to decide. As we have already seen, it 

 is not L. fuscescens, and apparently it can only be partially 

 included, if at all, under any of the remaining species. I 

 therefore propose to give a description of it here that will 

 suffice for systematical purposes, and to refer to one or two 

 points in its structure which will show that it is worthy of a 

 further histological examination. 

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