SERTULABJA. 135 



Feed the live petals of her insect flowers, 



Her shell-wrack gardens and her sea-fan bowers ; 



With ores and gems adorn her coral cell, 



And drop a pearl in every gaping shell." Botanic Garden. 



Mr. W. Thompson states, " I have collected a few ex- 

 amples of a black, as well as many of a red colour." 



16. SERTULARIA ARGENTEA, Squirrel's Tail Coralline. 

 (Plate V. fig. 15.) 



Hab. In deep water. On oysters, and other bivalve 

 shells. In brackish water, in shallow pools, and on the 

 floodgates of a dam in Belfast, Mr. W. Thompson. 



This beautiful feathered coralline is found in great abun- 

 dance, Ellis states, in the island of Sheppey, eastward of 

 Sheerness, growing on the rock oysters. " It generally 

 grows erect," he adds, " with thick tufts of alternately den- 

 ticulated ramifications placed in a spiral or screw-like order 

 round the stem from top to bottom." The whole coralline 

 assumes somewhat of the shape of a squirrel's tail, whence 

 the common English name. It is an exceedingly elegant 

 polypidom, rising sometimes to nearly a yard in height, and, 

 from being quite flexible, waving in the sea as the somewhat 

 similarly- shaped Swedish junipers wave in the breeze. 

 When it gets old, the under part of the stem becomes quite 



