BOTANICAL FEATURES. 37 
the employment of chemical reagents; whilst in an enormous and 
unwieldy genus like Zeczdea, containing as it does some 4oo British 
species, the very first step towards identification is an examination of 
the spores. 
Algae. That seaweeds were collected in this island a long time 
ago is attested by a fresh-looking specimen of Fucus 
vest-ulosus preseived in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens 
at Kew, which bears this label: ‘ Alga marina. Gather’d on the 
Isle of Guernesey.—T. Know, 1726.’ And it may be worth noticing 
that the first indigenous plant to bear the name of the island was a 
seaweed, now called Rhodymenia palmata, var. sarniensis. It was 
originally described by Mertens in 1806, under the name of Fucus 
sarniensis, in Roth’s Catalecta Botanica, with the note, ‘Ex insula 
Sarnia misit amicus quidam Mertensio.’ ‘Two years later Dawson 
Turner adopted the name in his great work, and remarked, ‘ Pro- 
fessor Mertens received the plant from the Island of Guernsey.’ 
Curiously enough, however, there is in the Kew Herbarium a 
specimen received by Dawson Turner from Mertens in 1807, bearing 
a label in his (Mertens’) own handwriting, as follows: ‘Fucus 
sarniensis, mihi. Brought from the Isle of Jersey by a military 
friend in the Dutch service.’ Here again we have a confusion 
of the names of the two islands, Guernsey and Jersey, precisely 
similar to what has already been alluded to in reference to /uncus 
capitatus (see p. 22). 
In the matter of seaweeds Guernsey is particularly favoured by its 
southerly situation, and the possession of a magnificent rocky coast, 
so that not only is there an abundance and variety of these beautiful 
plants, but a large proportion of them attain a luxuriance of growth 
and development which is quite exceptional, if not unknown, on the 
Englist shores. Several species that are plentiful here are of 
extreme rarity on the other side of the English Channel, and a few 
have not as yet been found there. It was my good fortune, during 
the year 1894, to discover four species new to Britain, viz., Streblo- 
nema Zanardintt, Polystphonia opaca, Liebmannia Leveillit, and 
Lithophyllum expansum. 
The very best localities for seaweed-collecting, as far as my 
experience goes, are, on the north of the island, Bordeaux Harbour 
and Cobo, the outlying reefs of rocks only accessible at the lowest 
spring tides ; and, on the south, Moulin Huet Bay and the eastern 
side of Petit Bot. But on these splendid shores something in- 
teresting is sure to be found in every nook and corner that is 
carefully examined, and deep-water forms of great rarity are 
frequently washed up after violent autumnal storms. 
There is not much to be said about the Fresh-water Algae, 
which are very poorly represented in Guernsey The most pro- 
mising localities yield but little, and the few species that occur here 
