MixncJicstcr Memoirs, Vol. Int. {igog), No. I4- 5 



Mr. W. West in the fournal of Botany. It seemed to 

 these authors to agree most closely with Pithopliora 

 oedogouia, a tropical South American species, a variety 

 of which however, occurs in the Southern United States. 

 The Reddish form is looked upon as another variety, and 

 has been named var. polyspora (Rendle and West fils), on 

 account of the greater number of its spores. No species 

 of this genus has, as yet, been recorded from Egj'pt, or 

 indeed from any part of Africa. The assumption there- 

 fore, as regards this alga, is that it may have been 

 introduced with American Cotton. Its distribution in 

 the canal indicates that it is more resistant than the 

 other aliens to lower temperatures, as it extends un- 

 interruptedly from station i to 1 8, and may indeed, extend 

 far beyond the portion of the canal actually examined 

 by us. 



On working through the material collected on our 

 visit in December, Mr. Murray discovered an alga not 

 previously recorded from Reddish, or indeed from any 

 locality in Britain, It is a small branching alga, of 

 greenish blue colour, slightly red in reflected light, and 

 which could easily be identified as belonging to the genus 

 Conipsopogon, Montague. This genus, the only one in its 

 family, occupies a somewhat indeterminate position among 

 the algae, being generally regarded as nearly related to 

 the Bangiaceae, a somewhat primitive or reduced family 

 of the Red Algae or Rhodophyceae. Most members of 

 the latter are marine, but there are a few freshwater forms 

 of the Rhodophyceae, such as Batrachospermiun the 

 common Frog-spawn Alga, and Le»iajiea, both of which 

 occur in our mountain streams. CoDipsopogon on the 

 other hand, is entirely tropical and subtropical in its 

 distribution, and its occurrence in the Reddish Canal, 

 must clearly be attributed to the same causes that have 



