66 ERYTHEA. 
genus Gigartina both in species and individuals. Dr. Ander- 
son recognizes nine species in his “List of California Marine 
Alge,” seven of which were found last July in greater or less 
abundance about the Bay of Monterey. The common Gigar- 
tina Radula is often thickly clothed with the elegant Micro- 
cladia Coulieri, so much prized for ornamental uses. Gigar- 
tina mamillosa, the only species of this genus on the coast 
of New England, is not known to occur in California. Jridwa 
laminarioides is a plant that must be seen growing to be 
appreciated. The matter-of-fact description given it by that 
enthusiastic and poetic friend of the “sea-mosses,” Rev. A. B. 
Hervey, is explained only by the supposition that he had never 
seen it in all its iridescent glory upon its native shores. 
Dried specimens give but a faint suggestion of the possibilities 
of the plant in the way of displaying rainbow tints under the 
right conditions of light and moisture. 
A sea-weed which immediately attracts attention in most 
bays of the Pacific coast is the Great Kelp—Macrocystis 
pyrijera. This plant undoubtedly attains a length greater 
than that of any other of the earth’s organisms. A 
length of 700 feet is attributed to a single individual by Sir 
J.D. Hooker in the Flora Antarctica and still more impos- 
ing figures have found a place in the estimates of others. Beds 
of this giant weed are found in the Bay of Monterey, usually 
at some little distance from the shore. The plants grow in 
rather deep water and on reaching the surface lie prostrate 
on the waves, buoyed up by the air-vessels, which occur in 
the petioles of the leaves. The great size of Macrocystis and 
the distinct differentiation into stem and leaves, make it diffi- 
cult to realize at first that this plant has its place among the 
alge. Nereocystis Liitkeana, the Sea-otter’s Cabbage, another 
of the great weeds of the Pacific, was, judging from 
descriptions, not fully grown at the time of my visit. Still, 
specimens twenty-five or thirty feet long were found washed 
ashore on “Moss Beach,” which, however, faces the open 
ocean rather than the bay. 
Among the more interesting plants collected, Fucus evanes- 
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