THE MARINE ALG.E OF NEW ENGLAND. 105 



non-sexual spores (?).0S mm broad by .10-12 mnr long, motionless, borne on 

 short branches, which are at right angles to the main filaments, from 

 which they break off, allowing the spores to escape from the ruptured 

 end. 



Exs.— Wittrock & Nordstedt, Alg. Scand., No. 228. 



On muddy shores and sides of ditches, where it forms large patches 



of a dark velvety green. Summer. 



, Wood's Holl, Mass. ; Eastport, Maine; Perth Amboy, N. J., Wolle; 



Europe. 



This species, which is apparently common on muddy shores of New England, agrees 

 bo well with the description and figure of Woronin, 1. c, that there can be no doubt 

 about the identity of our plant with that of the European coast. The non-sexual 

 fruit was unknown to Woronin. At Wood's Holl we found what apx>eared to be the 

 non-sexual fruit of the species. It consisted of oval spores, smaller thau the oospores, 

 borne at the tips of short branches, which were given off- at right angles to the main 

 filaments. The branches with the spores fall off, and the latter, after some time, 

 escape from the ruptured end of the cell. The spores are motionless and destitute of 

 cilia, reminding one of the non-sexual spores in V. geminata, Walz. During the four 

 or five days which we were able to watch them they underwent no change. In thd 

 specimen of Wolle, above mentioned, similar bodies are found, but Nordstedt thinks 

 it probable that they belong to a species different from V. Thuretii. He is led to this 

 conclusion apparently from the fact that the filaments bearing the non-sexual spores 

 are rather smaller than those which bear the oospores and autheridia. In the Wood's 

 Holl specimens the filaments were, as a rule, somewhat smaller than those bearing 

 the oospores ; but the difference is very slight, and one sometimes finds oosporiferous 

 filaments measuring only .03 mm in diameter, while the non-sexual spore-bearing fila- 

 ments average from .04-5 mm in diameter. In one case wo found an antheridium on the 

 non-sexual spore-bearing filament, which resembled precisely the autheridia of V. 

 Thuretii. We conclude then that the non-sexual spores probably belong to the present 

 species, but the question requires further examination. A specimen of what appears 

 to be the same species exists in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural His- 

 tory. It was collected by Prof. J. W. Bailey from some locality near New York, and 

 is labelled, in his own handwriting, V. velutina. 



V. litorea, Nordstedt (Ag., Spec. Alg., p. 463. — V. clavata, Lyngb., 

 Hydrophyt. Dan., p. 78, PI. 21 d. — V. litorea, Nordstedt, in Botan. No- 

 tiser., 1879, p. 180, PI. 2, Figs. 1-6.-7". piloboloides, Farlow, List of 

 Mariue Algae, 1876.) 



Dioecious ; filaments densely tufted, rather rigid, .10 mm in diameter ; 

 autheridia?; oogonia club-shaped, borne on a short sterile cell at the tips 

 of short recurved brauches, .20 mm broad by about .35 mm long ; oospores 

 filling the upper part of oogonium, spheroidal, .lS-19 mm broad by .23- 

 25 mm long; cell- wall dense, .02 mm in thickness; non-sexual spores? 



At low- water mark in the gravel. 



Parker's Point, Wood's Holl, Mass.; Europe. 



We refer to the present species a Vauclwria much coarser than the species last 

 described, which forms rather bristly tufts of a dingy green, from two to four inches 

 high, in gravelly places. Only one specimen, collected in August, 1876, was in fruit, 



