SEA- WEEDS. 15 



our civil war, and he urged the soldiers to 

 resort to mushrooms instead of poor beef. 

 In North Carolina he found seventy-eight 

 edible species. 



The Alg^ include the sea-weeds and 

 many minute or inconspicuous gTcen plants 

 which inhabit pools and lakes. Here are 

 included plants which, in varieties of size, of 

 shape, and of structure, exceed the wildest 

 pictures of the imagination. Microscopic 

 diamond-shaped or globular or irregular and 

 curiously marked objects which swim in 

 ponds and deep seas, more like animals than 

 plants ; delicate threads of green, more slen- 

 der than a spider's web, which form the 

 scum on ponds and the green tints on old 

 boards and roofs ; fairy-like feathers and 

 tresses of beautiful red, which make up the 

 " flowers of the ocean ; " broad, leathery, 

 and sombre " devil's aprons," large enough 

 to load down a man ; curiously punctured 

 " sea-cullenders ; " great tree-like plants 

 which make forests under the seas ; — these 

 are some of the forms of algae. The ocean has 

 a wonderful flora, and scarcely less wonder- 

 ful is the varied plant-life of every pond and 

 pool. The ocean and fresh waters support 

 their peculiar kinds of these flowerless plants. 



