Descr, Root? 'Frond 6-12 inches long, robust, shrubby, somewhat fastigiate, 

 but very irregularly branched, either much or little divided, and varying 

 from one to five or six lines in diameter, terete or compressed. Sometimes 

 the whole frond consists of ellipsoidal, obtusely tuberculed or papillate, 

 swollen portions, strung together by slender, cylindrical necks ; the ter- 

 minal swellings more or less bristling with filiform raraenta. Sometimes 

 the swellings have a spindle shape, and are several times longer than their 

 diameter ; the narrow parts proportionally short. Again, specimens occur 

 which are but little swollen, and only constricted at the insertion of the 

 branches ; these are generally more slender than ordinary specimens, and 

 more copiously beset with spine-like ramenta. Flattened specimens are 

 less common. The ramenta vary greatly in density and in their develop- 

 ment ; when copious they completely clothe the branches (much more 

 densely than our figure represents), and are from quarter to half an inch 

 long, and more or less branched. In other specimens they are mere knobs, 

 or disappear altogether. Conceptacles about as large as poppy-seed, tuber- 

 culate, borne on the ramenta ; becoming hollow in the centre, and contain- 

 ing numerous tufts of spores, ranged round a central placenta ; spores 

 pyriform. Colour, when quite fresh, a dark livid-purple ; changing on 

 exposure to scarlet, orange, yellow, and white. Substance cartilaginous 

 when fresh, horny and semitransparent when dry. It does not adhere to 

 paper in drying. 



Very variable in habit and in colour ; but, once seen, easily 

 recognized under all its shapes. This is the " Jelly-plant " of 

 the colonists of Western Australia, who use it in the manufac- 

 ture of jellies and blancmanges, as Chondrus crispus (Carrageen) 

 is used in England; and as Gracilaria liclienoides and others 

 are used in the East. All yield, on long boiling, mucilages of 

 a similar description, containing (according to the analysis of 

 Dr. Apjohn) nitrogen in considerable quantity, and therefore 

 having a fair claim to be regarded as nourishing food. 



Fig. 1. EucHEUMA SPECIOSUM, — the natural size. 2. Fragment with ramenta 

 and conceptacles. 3. Section through a conceptacle. 4. Spores from one 

 of the spore-tufts : — the latter figures variously magnified. 



