A NEW JAPANESE GRATELOUPIA 209 



Hab. : Japan, S. Okubo, 1912. 



The nearest approach to this species, in the mode of 

 branching, is Grateloupia Pennaiula, Kuetzing, a native of 

 Cuba (" Tab. Phyc," vol. xvii., tab. 27, a, b,), which has similar 

 ramelli, but both the ramuli and ramelli are lanceolate-linear 

 rather than subuliform, and are much shorter in proportion. 

 The rose colour, so far as I know, is never found in forms of 

 Grateloupia filicina, although I have seen many forms referred 

 to this species. The structure, is however, typical of Grate- 

 loupia^ and not of loose texture as in the section Gloiogenia, 

 to which a rose-coloured species, G. aainiinata, from Japan,, 

 previously described by me, belongs. 



Kenfig Burrows : An Ecological Study. 

 Communicated by M. Y. Orr.^ 



Kenfig Burrows forms the southern extremity of a fringe of blowrk 

 sand which borders the south-west coast of Glamorgan as far as 

 Swansea, a distance of fifteen miles. The breaks in its continuity 

 are brought about by the rivers Avon and Neath. At Kenfig the 

 sand dunes extend inland for over two miles at the broadest part, 

 and occupy an area of approximately 1500 acres. The general drift 

 of the sand is in an easterly direction. 



Apart altogether from the biological problems involved, the area 

 is of great historical interest, for a waste of sand now covers what 

 was at one time a prosperous town. A few scattered ruins on the 

 northern dunes are all that remain to mark the site of the castle 

 and buried city of Kenfig. The invasion of the sand since Roman 

 times appears to have been gradual, but, according to tradition, 

 sand storms of considerable magnitude occurred in the fourteenth 

 century. In 1 538 ruin had overtaken the town and castle, and both 

 were abandoned to the advancing sand. 



Kenfig is now represented by a little hamlet, situated about half 

 a mile from the castle ruins, on a ridge overlooking the sheet of 

 water known as Kenfig Pool. This water occupies the central 

 portion of the landward margin of the dunes. From its eastern 

 shore the ground slopes gradually upwards to the ridge, the height 

 of which, and of the adjacent fixed dunes, varies from ninety to one 

 hundred feet above sea-level. The pool forms the apex of a trian- 

 gular wedge of fertile land which has not been invaded by the sand 

 to any great extent. No doubt, the pool, owing to its position, 

 forms a natural barrier to the further incursions of the sand. The 



' Read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 

 VOL. I. ' 16 



