80 Howe; Phycological studies 



is known only from the Caicos Islands and the extreme eastern 

 Bahamas. And Neomcris dumctosa will possibly be found again 

 in the West Indies when some collector of marine algae visits the 

 right island. And, furthermore, the occurrence of this species in 

 both the West Indies and the East Indies may occasion no sur- 

 prise in view of the fact that Neomeris annulata and various other 

 marine Siphonales are now generally conceded to have a similar 

 distribution. In connection with the original description of Neo- 

 meris dtcuietosa^ it is said to grow associated with Acetabidaria 

 crcmUata^ a species which appears to be exclusively American. 

 The Paris Museum material of the probably original N, diimetosa 

 is intermingled with a few broken stalks of plants apparently be- 

 longing in the genus referred to, but without caps or sporangia a 

 determination of the species is out of the question, 



2. Neomeris van Bosseae sp. nov. 



Neonicj'is dumetosa Sender, Alg. trop. Austral. 36. pi. §./. 8-ij. 

 1871. — J. Ag, Till. Alg. Syst. 5: 147-151. //. 2. f. ^-7. 



1887. — Cramer, Neue Denkschr. Schweiz. Naturf. Ges. 32: 



(19-21). //. /./. ij ; pi. 2. f. 7. 8. 1890. — Solms, Ann. 



r 



Jard. Bot Buitenzorg ii : pL 8. f, ii. 1 893. Not Neomeris 



dninetosa Lamour. Hist. Polyp. 243.//. 7./. 8, 18 16. 



Plants gregarious or scattered, clavate, subcylindrical, or some- 

 what fusiform, 15-35 ^^"^- lo^'^gi 2-3,5 ^"^- thick, mostly 6-12 

 times as long as thick, often curved near the middle or toward the 

 rounded-obtuse or subacute apex: successive whorls of primary 

 branches about 290-350 in number, 50-80 fx apart in basal and 

 median regions, 150-170 // toward apex; number of branches in 

 a whorl usually 32-44 : hairs all of one form, persistent in a mod- 

 erately conspicuous apical tuft : ends of the branches of the second 

 order in the mature stage forming a cortex with the hexagonal 

 facets in regular or irregular rows, each pair of corticating branches 

 commonly lying in a transverse plane, the number of transverse 

 rows of facets equaling, In consequence, the number of primary 

 whorls, and the number of facets in a row being twice that of the 

 elements in a primary whorl, or, the pairs of corticating branches 

 lying in oblique planes and the arrangement of the facets then 

 less manifestly regular, cortex rather brittle, yet usually persisting 

 in upper third or half, reticulate on drying : branches of the first 

 order 570-1000 /i long, 20-50 {x in diameter in their basal and 

 median parts, mostly 15-30 times as long as their median diam- 



