Forbesiane. N. O. Alge. 
TAB. DCLXXIX. 
CRYPTONEMIA ? Forsesi, Harv. 
Caule cylindraceo cartilagineo dichotomo, foliis exacte renifor- 
mibus sessilibus amplexicaulibus horizontalibus fusco-rubris 
coriaceis, 
Has. Dredged in the Mediterranean Sea, 8 miles off the Island 
of Paros in 50 fathom water, Prof. Edward Forbes, 1841. 
Stem cylindrical, solid, nearly 3 a line in diameter, at first 
simple, about a quarter of an inch long, and expanding at the 
apex into a horizontal reniform leaf; then lengthening, by the 
growth of the summit through the base of the leaf (which thus 
becomes amplexicaul to the new stem,) and expanding into a 
new leaf; and so it continues alternately lengthening and 
forming new leaves at intervals of froma quarter to half an 
inch; each leaf, which at first was terminal, becoming by the 
Successive growths of the stem, lateral and amplexicaul. As 
the stem advances, it is forked at every second or third leaf, and 
this being repeated, an irregularly dichotomous leafy frond is 
at length formed. Leaves about half an inch asunder, 1-3 inch 
in diameter, exactly reniform, somewhat wavy, coriaceo-mem- 
branaceous, thickish, without vein or rib, dull brownish-red, 
of a very dense structure, consisting, internally, of a close web of 
slender, entangled, somewhat coloured fibres, externally of a 
stratum of minute polygonal cellules, Fruit unknown. 
The genus to which this very remarkable plant belongs is 
extremely doubtful, and probably, when the fruit is known, it 
will be found necessary to constitute it the type of a new one. 
I refer it provisionally to Cryptonemia, Ag., on account of a 
resemblance in the structure of the frond, but its mode of 
foliation is altogether peculiar, and the colour reminds us more 
of that of the Rhodomelee, than of any species of Cryptonemia. 
One drawing is made from a single specimen in the Herbarium 
of Prof. Forbes.—W. H. Harvey. 
Fig. 1. Leaf, slightly magnified. f. 2. Transverse section of 
the same ; magnified. 
