300 



BY THE DEEP SEA. 



grape-stones (Greek, gigartori), which contain the spores. The 

 usually purplish fronds will be found, on cutting them across, 

 to be not solid, as they appear, but composed of delicate 

 threads, in a firm clear jelly. 



A pretty little red weed, that is abundant in the rock-pools, 

 growing upon other weeds, is the Chylocladia parvula, which 

 has swollen, cactus-like ovate joints, of a clear red, appearing 

 as though they were skins filled with liquid. It is allied to 

 Plocamium and Rhodymenia. 



The most striking of all these red-spored algae, at least, so 

 far as the British flora is concerned, is the (for a seaweed) ex- 

 traordinary Ash-leaved Seaweed (Worm- 

 skioldia sanguined), whose frond has a 

 distinct leaf- like form, with a mid-rib and 

 branching nervures. Its texture is so very 

 thin, that in spite of its beautiful rosy tint, 

 if a specimen were laid upon this page, the 

 print could be read through it. Its mar- 

 gins are more lax than the mid-rib, so that 

 when mounted for the herbarium, the edges 

 show many foldings over. The plant was 

 formerly placed in the genus Delesseria, 

 but is now separated on account of im- 

 portant differences in the matter of prop- 

 agation. In this species minute leaf-like 

 organs spring from the mid-ribband may 

 be taken for young plants springing 

 from the parent, but these are really the 

 bodies that bear the spores. 



The Winged Delesseria (Delesseria alatd) 

 is a finely and intricately branched plant, 

 of a rich dark crimson colour, with a suggestion of a mid-rib, 

 along each side of which is a narrow expanse of thin mem- 

 brane, the "wings" of its popular and technical names. It 

 occurs in thick tufts on the stems of Laminaria digitata. 



ASH-LEAVED SEA-WEED. 



