314 PALMELLE^E. 



2. COCCOCHLORIS MU8CICOLA Menegh. 

 Plate LXXVIII. Figs. 3 a. 3 b. 



Char. " Frond mucous, indefinite, very slender, investing mosses, 

 blackish green ; the smallest globules perfectly spherical, 

 .green, generally germinate. Vesicles elliptical, the larger 

 entirely filled with lesser globules, and not surrounded with 

 any margin" 



P. hyalina, B. muscicola Harv., Manual, p. 177. 

 Hab. Aberdeen : Dr. Dickie. 



"The mucous pellicle, blackish green, shining, covers exten- 

 sively mosses, and at the same time includes with our Cocco- 

 chloris, Oscillatoria autumnalis and Nostoc lichenoideum, the 

 Coccochloris globules scarcely measuring the three-thousandth 

 part of a millimetre, imbedded in a soft and easily yielding 

 mucus, in which are mixed, scattered elliptical vesicles, varying 

 in dimensions from the hundredth to the twenty-fifth part 

 of a millemetre, entirely filled with smaller globules closely 

 heaped together. The vesicles themselves are seen to be 

 constituted of a very slender membrane, which embraces them, 

 but not presenting a diaphanous margin, and which by lacera- 

 tion is scarcely to be perceived : when the membrane has been 

 ruptured, the contents of the globules escape into irregular 

 angular heaps. The vesicle from which the globules have 

 proceeded is not apparent : this however is certain, that the 

 globules are not surrounded by any peculiar membrane. 



" The vesicles effused into irregular areolae resemble the 

 beginnings of new fronds, which, evolved in the mucous matrix, 

 and quickly becoming confluent, form a mucous pellicle. Hence 

 the frond is said to be indefinite, although, in the beginning, 

 as in all other species of this genus, it is definite. This spe- 

 cies agrees in habit with Coccochloris protuberans, but in 

 structure and microscopic characters it exhibits greater affi- 

 nity with Coccochloris parietalis, as will be shewn hereafter." 

 In drying, it leaves but a mere stain upon the paper, most 

 evident at the margins of the frond. 



