110 BATRACHOSPERME^E. 



Batrachospermum turfosum Bory, in Annales du Museum, 

 loc. cit. Conferva gelatinosa var. vaga Roth, Bot. 

 i. 127. Batrachospermum moniliforme var. (8) vagum 

 Roth, Fl. Germ. iii. 482. 



Hob. Appin : Captain Carmichael. Summit of Snowdon : 

 Sir W. J. Hooker. Loch Phadrich, 2199 feet above the 

 level of the sea, Aberdeenshire, August, 1842 : Dr. 

 Dickie. Frequent in Ireland : D. Moore. Cromaglan : 

 W.H.Harvey. Gal way: M c Colla. In the stream by 

 the wall near the entrance of the park by the road-side 

 from Rackham to Pulborough : E. Jenner. 



" M. Thore, naturalist of Dax, first discovered this plant 

 in the environs of the city which he inhabits. I have 

 since met with it in peat holes of our southerly lands in 

 places where the water, although coloured, is pure ; it there 

 grows always at a certain depth, and rarely less than from 

 two to three feet. 



" In no other Conferva is the number of the filaments so 

 considerable as in this. Their total diameter equals that of 

 the largest horsehair. They divide in every direction from 

 a little disc, ramify to infinity, observing remarkably well 

 the dichotomous disposition in their first division, their 

 branches becoming subsequently vague. Their total length 

 extends even to four inches. 



" From their origin, even to their extremity, these filaments 

 are clothed with microscopic branches, so impacted that the 

 whorls are not apparent in scarcely any direction : with a 

 simple lens they are not better discovered, from which it 

 might be supposed that one was observing a Thorea. It is 

 but towards the points of the branches that, by the assistance 

 of a strong lens, they are at last distinguished. These whorls 

 are very closely approximated, horizontal, compressed the 

 one upon the other, and becoming so confused as to form 

 around the filament, which is green or yellow, and very 

 flexible, a continuous down, mucous to the touch, sometimes 

 very pale, more frequently of a very agreeable bluish watery 

 green : this colour is moreover deep towards the point of the 



