512 NEMALIOXACEAE. 



genus the thallus is usually terete, repeatedly forked, or sometimes subpinnate 

 or laterally proliferous, more or less calcified, and is usually lubricous Tvhen 

 living, at least in the younger parts. Some of the species of Liagora bear a 

 superficial resemblance to certain Corallinaceae, but the Liagoras are more 

 lubricous and when examined under a microscope after decalcification '\vith an 

 acid the thallus is seen to be more distinctly and loosely filamentous in struc- 

 ture, with a more sharply defined central strand of filaments. L. valida forms 

 dense tufts or clusters, mostly 2-5 inches high or long; the thallus is many 

 times forked, the numerous branches being about half a line in diameter ; the 

 older parts are solidly encrusted with lime, are white, and become transversely 

 cracked or irregularly jointed; the color of the younger parts varies from pink 

 to brownish red. Small superficial spots, less calcified, usually concave and 

 waxy in the dried condition, and easily visible under a hand-lens, mark the 

 position of the immersed cystocarps. (Phyc. Bor,-Am. 1929.) 



Liagora ceranoides Lamour. is more slender, more lubricous, and more 

 divaricately dichotomous than the preceding. The calcification appears under 

 the hand-lens to take the form of scaly or mealy flakes instead of a more or 

 less continuous crust. The plant occurs on rocks near the low-water line in 

 Castle Harbor, etc. The type of the species was from the island of St. 

 Thomas in the Danish West Indies. The later-described Liagora pulverulenta 

 Ag. as currently (and, with little doubt correctly) interpreted is apparently 

 the same species. (Phyc. Bor.-Am. 1928, as Liagora pulverulenta.) 



Species of Liagora other than the two mentioned certainly occur in Ber- 

 muda, but their determination awaits critical study. A not uncommon species 

 has been referred sometimes to Liagora elongata Zan., originally described 

 from the Eed Sea, and sometimes to L. Cheyneana Harv., originally described 

 from western Australia. Possibly L. farinosa, a name applied by Lamouroux 

 in 1816 to a plant from the Eed Sea, will be found to be available for it. 

 This plant is less regularly dichotomous than either L. valida or L. ceranoides 

 and commonly shows numerous lateral proliferations. The peripheral filaments 

 project more or less beyond the zone of calcification and form a reddish nap 

 on the surface. The plant is coarser than L. ceranoides and much less calci- 

 fied and less rigid than L. valida. Under the microscope it differs from both 

 in the broader cells of the less moniliform peripheral filaments, in the dense 

 globose tufts of antheridia, etc. 



Family CHAETANaiACEAE. 



Galaxaura is a genus of more or less calcified algae, the plants, however, 

 being less thoroughly calcified and more flexible, at least when fresh, than 

 plants of the family Corallinaceae. They are, for the most part, coarser 

 plants than the Liagoras and usually have a firmer more obvious cortex. 



Galaxaura sutoverticillata Kjellm. is a shaggy, reddish brown or sordid 

 green plant with its longer assimilatory filaments in more or less distinct 

 whorls, especially toward the apices. It apparently represents the tetrasporic 

 phase of G. rugosa (Ell. & Soland.) Lamour., not yet reported from Bermuda. 

 It has been found on rocks in shallow water at Eed Bay, St. David's Island. 



