LAMIXARIE2E. 101 



Sea-weeds, find a favourable locality. The Laminariea 

 or Oar-weeds, are the largest of all sea-plants. Their 

 stout, woody stems, and broad, ribbon-like, glossy, olive 

 leaves, must be familiar to every one. When seen 

 through clear water, as you pass over them in a boat, 

 they form a picture resembling a miniature forest of 

 palm-trees, as their great fronds stand expanded in the 

 water, while fishes swim in and out among the flat 

 branches. None of those of our climate attain a length 

 of more than twelve or fourteen feet, and even at this 

 size the weight of a single frond is very great. But, these 

 are pigmies compared to some of the gigantic Lami- 

 nariece of the Southern, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans, 

 where great trunks, twenty feet long and upwards, sup- 

 port huge bunches of leaves that form when expanded 

 a circle of equal diameter. One species is said to have 

 stems reaching to the enormous length of fifteen hun- 

 dred feet, buoyed up by air-vessels from a great depth, 

 and extending afterwards for a considerable distance 

 along the surface of the sea. This plant, Macrocystis 

 pyrifera, is found through most parts of the Pacific 

 Ocean, and abounds in the southern parts of the Atlan- 

 tic, but has not been noticed in the Northern Atlantic. 

 Its stems are slender, becoming much branched, and 

 bear a profusion of lanceolate, serrated leaves, each of 

 which springs from an oblong air-vessel. Another spe- 

 cies (Nereocystis Lutkeanus) from the north-west coast 

 of America has stems, resembling whipcord, three hun- 

 dred feet in length, which support a great air-vessel at 

 their extremities, six or seven feet long, crowned with a 

 bunch of dichotomous leaves, each thirty or forty feet in 



