SERTULARIAD.E : SERTULARIA. 81 



Hob. " The Sea-cypress is chiefly found in deep water on the 

 coast of Yorkshire, Scotland, and the north of Ireland," Ellis. St. 

 Ives' Bay, Cornwall, Couch. Scarborough, Mr. Bean. Frith of 

 Forth, Jameson. Cork Bay, Mr. J. V. Thompson. On the shore of 

 Magilligan Strand, co. Deny, Tempkton. Dublin Bay, abundant, 

 A. H. H assail. Very rare on the east coast of Cornwall, owing no 

 doubt to the want of muscles and oysters ; more common on the 

 north coast ; plentiful in Devon and Norfolk, C. W. Peach. 



This is in general a larger and stouter species than the preceding, 

 with longer branches more decidedly fan-shaped, the pinnae being 

 closer and more parallel to one another. The cells are in two rows, 

 nearly opposite, smooth, and pellucid, adnate, with the margin of 

 the comparatively wide aperture sinuated so as to form two or some- 

 times three prominent denticles. The branches, in some specimens, 

 are gracefully arched, bending as it were under the load of pregnant 

 ovaries which they carry, and which are arranged in close-set rows 

 along the upper side of the pinnae. They are of an oval shape, 

 smooth, attenuated at the base, with sometimes a sharp spine at 

 each corner of the apex ; but these are oftener absent. 



This and the preceding have a distinct stem, in which they differ 

 from all the other native species, which are pre-eminently frondose 

 or homologous, the offsets and pinnae being in all respects the same 

 as the primary shoot. Pallas maintains that they constitute but 

 one species, his S. cupressina, Blench. 141 the characters assigned 

 to them respectively being far from specifical, since he found, on one 

 and the same specimen, that the young vesicles had long spines at 

 their tops, the more mature shorter ones, and on full-grown vesicles 

 they were nearly or altogether obsolete ; while bluntly tubulous and 

 acutely pointed cells occurred promiscuously, on the same stalk, in 

 specimens of every size and exterior habit. Linnaeus, apparently 

 swayed by these assertions, followed Pallas ; but Ellis, in a later 

 work, adhered to his first opinion, for, "besides the difference of 

 their denticles (cells) and ovaries," which he evidently regarded as 

 permanent, they have, he says, " quite a different habit and manner 

 of growing." All subsequent writers have assented to Ellis's views, 

 most of them, at the same time, expressing a suspicion of their cor- 

 rectness ; and my own limited observations have possessed me with 

 the same dubiety. Specimens can be readily produced which, from 

 habit and the figure of their cells, will be at once pronounced the 

 representatives of distinct species, but a wider examination may 

 lead to another conclusion. I have seen no specimens of S. cupres- 



