234 THE TWO FLORAS, 



ed by the water for days together. If, as is not uncommon, 

 there be an escape of land-springs along the beach, there may 

 be found, where the fresh water oozes out through the sand 

 and gravel, an upper terminal zone of the confer vse, chiefly 

 of a green colour, mixed with the ribbon-like green laver, 

 (Ulva latissimaj, the purplish-brown laver fPorphyra laci- 

 niataj, and still more largely with the green silky Entero- 

 morpha fE. compressaj.* And then, decidedly within the 

 line of the storm-beaches of winter, — not unfrequently in low 

 sheltered bays, such as the Bay of XJdale or of Nigg, where 

 the ripple of every higher flood washes, — we may find the 

 vegetation of the land — ^represented by the sentinels and 

 picquets of its outposts — coming down, as if to meet with 

 the higher-growing plants of the sea. In salt marshes the 

 two vegetations may be seen, if I may so express myself, 

 dovetailed together at their edges, — at least one species of 

 club-rush (Scirpus maritirmbs) and the common saltwort 

 and glass wort (Salsola kali and Salicomia procumhensj en- 

 croaching so far upon the sea as to mingle with a thinly- 

 scattered and sorely-diminished fucus, — that bladderless 

 variety of the Fucus vesiculosus to which I have already 

 referred, and which may be detected in such localities, shoot- 

 ing forth its minute brown fronds from the pebbles. On 

 rocky coasts, where springs of fresh water come trickling 

 down along the fissures of the precipices, the observer may 

 see a variety of Rhodomenia palmata, — the fresh- water dulse 

 of the Moray Frith, — creeping upwards from the lower limits 

 of production, tii> just where the common gray balanus ceases 



* '' Dr Neill mentions," says the Eev. Mr Landsborough, in his com- 

 plete and very interesting " History of British Sea- Weeds," ** that on 

 our shores algae generally occupy zones in the following order, beginning 

 from deep water: — F. filum; F. esculentus and bulbosus; F. digitatus, 

 saccharinus, and loreus; F. serratus and crispus ; F. nodosus and vesicu- 

 losus; F. canaliculatus ; and, last of all, F. pygmceus, which is satisfied 

 if it be within reach of the spray." 



