Box.— Vol. I] SAUNDERS— PHYCOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 1 57 



The plant forms dense, ropey, dark olive-brown masses 

 3-8 cm. long on Fiicits sp, Ilwaco, Washingion, near the 

 mouth of the Columbia River. 



On the southern Californian coast material was collected 

 of what seems to be another well marked variety of P. litto- 

 ralis. As the material was sterile I forbear making any 

 further additions to the long list of varieties and forms of 

 this species. 



The description of the plant is given below: — 



26. Pylaiella littoralis, var. 



Plate XXV, Figs. 3 and 4. 



Plant composed of loosely intertwined, light olive-green filaments of indefi- 

 nite length, bearing a few long attentuate branches 20-70/i broad, Yz-i times 

 as long as the diameter, not at all narrowed upwards. Main filament and 

 the branches bearing many one- to few-celled branchlets which stand at right 

 angles to the filament. 



Forming a light yellow flocculent mass of a few cm. long 

 on Ainphtroa. San Pedro, California, Aug., 1896. 



II.— SPHACELARIACE^ AND ENCCELIACE^ OF THE PACIFIC 



COAST. 



Family SPHACELARIACE^ {Decne.) Kuetz. 



Sphacelariacecs (Decne.) Kuetz., Linn., XVII, 1843, 93. 



Plant body arising from a larger or smaller mass of cellular tissue, poly- 

 siphonous, more or less branched, increasing by the division of a large ter- 

 minal cell ; reproductive organs (unilocular and a plurilocular sporangia) 

 arising on a longer or shorter stalk directly from the basal tissue or borne 

 laterally on the erect filaments. 



The family includes at present about eleven genera, only 

 one of which has been collected on the California coast. 



27. Sphacelaria Lyngb. 



Sphacelaria Lyngb., Hydrophyt. Dan., 103, 1819. 



Plant olive-brown, tufted, filamentous, branching ; basal plate fastened to 

 rocks or in the tissue of other algae as a substratum ; both the axis and 



