sure, to a dull reddish-brown, and bleaching to a dirty-white. The cellular 

 strudure is very dense ; all the cells of the medullary layer are filled with 

 endochrome. The conceptacles are formed, one or two together, on super- 

 ficial, cuneate or obovate leaflets, i-i inch long ; their pericarp is very thick, 

 and the chamber much larger than the nucleus, which (perhaps) is imma- 

 ture in our specimens. Tetraspores unknown. 



To the casual observer this plant will appear very like the 

 common European Bhodi/menia pahiata, better known perhaps 

 by its vulgar name Dulse or Billisk ; but obvious differences 

 may be found on more careful examination. The most obvious 

 is the rigid, winged stipes, passing into a vanishing rib in the 

 lower part of the frond. There is no trace of such a stipes or rib 

 in B. pahnata. A difference in fruit, and in the intimate struc- 

 ture of the frond, further obliges us to place these two plants, 

 so like externally, not only in different genera, but in different 

 families. 



The genus Epymenia was founded by Kiitzing on a plant from 

 the Cape, which had been referred by Greville to Pki/Uophora. 

 That species {E. obfMsa, Kiitz.) is nearly related to the Alga 

 now figured, but is of much brighter colour, of thicker sub- 

 stance, with broader, more wedge-shaped, and much more ab- 

 ruptly obtuse apices. It has been found in New Zealand, and 

 may perhaps occur on the south coast of Tasmania, but has not 

 yet been recorded. A third species {E. acuta) is found in New 

 Zealand. The " Bhod. variolosa," of ' Flora Antarctica,' referred 

 to Epymenia by Kiitzing, does not belong to this genus. 



Fig. 1. Epymenia membranacea. 2. Fragment of a fruit-bearing frond: — 

 both of the tiatm-al size. 3. Section through a pericarp, showing the en- 

 closed favella, — magnified. 



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