244 CRYPTOGAMIA ALG^E. 



A little history of this alga, from one having authority in 

 these matters, might afford a useful lesson ; but our at- 

 tempt will probably subject us to the charge of ignorance, 

 or of wilful blindness to the merits of our superiors. The 

 plant was placed by LINNAEUS in his genus Byssus, which, 

 we will admit, was made up out of somewhat heterogene- 

 ous materials, and could not of course be permitted to re- 

 main unaltered, when the fashion came to have all the 

 members of a genus as like to one another as was Sebastian 

 to Viola. And firstly, then, the subject of our story be- 

 came a Conferva^ a change of nomenclature which, as the 

 consequence of some little additional acquaintance with its 

 structure, was perhaps not to be found fault with; but 

 scarcely was the name familiarized to us, until another 

 change was deemed necessary to fit it for its proper place 

 in the natural system. Could anything be more natural 

 than to arrange a terrestrial, slightly organized, filament- 

 ous production among plants which are the natives of the 

 sea, live constantly submerged, and possess a comparative- 

 ly high and complex structure ? Certainly not ; and so 

 our late Conferva was located amongst the Ceramia! Bo- 

 tany, however, has been said to be a progressive science ; 

 hence, in another year or so, a Ceramium this plant was 

 not, and it figured next as an Ectocarpus. How many 

 months or days it retained this appellation I do not know ; 

 it certainly in no long space of time was degraded to a sy- 

 nonym, and the very euphonical Trentepohlia usurped the 

 higher station, too soon alas ! to be displaced, or perhaps 

 it ousted for here my learning fails me the little less 

 euphonical Amphiconium. If the reader should ask a reason 

 for my choice of this name in preference to the others, I 

 might be puzzled for an answer, a " sad choice led him 

 perplexed ;" and if I have erred, it may plead some pal- 

 liation of the error to remember, that if a new name had 

 been invented for the occasion, this little volume might 

 have had a chance of being quoted in future by great bo- 

 tanists and in great books ! But let not the reader sup- 

 pose that Amphiconium is the latest alias for this plant ; 

 the name was used in a celebrated system of vegetables 

 published in the year 1827, and botany, in its nature a 

 progressive science, has fully participated in that improve- 

 ment of all things, physical, political, and moral, which has 

 distinguished the intermediate years. And it is now dis- 

 covered, what indeed was always too obvious, that all the 

 above-mentioned mutations in its nomenclature have not 

 only not added one iota to our knowledge of the plant, 

 either in structure or in its relations to other plants, but 



