THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



No. 85. MAY 1844. 



XXXVII. — Description of a new species of Codium recently dis- 

 covered on the west coast of Ireland. By William Henry 

 Harvey, Esq, 



[With a Plate.] 

 To the Editors of the Anmds of Natund His-tory. 

 Gentlemen, 

 Having just received from my friend Mr. David Moore, of tlie 

 Glasnevin Botanic Gardens, a specimen of a remarkable new spe- 

 cies of Codium lately added to the Irish flora, with a request that 

 I should make it known to the public, I \o^e no time, as the best 

 means of meeting his wishes, in forwarding to you a draAving and 

 description of it, and hope that you may find room for this notice 

 in an early number. 



The following character will abundantly distinguish it : — • 

 Codium amphibium, Moore ; frondibus minutis, erectis, cylindraceis vel 



subclavatis, simplicibus, obtusis, in strato late effuse aggregatis. 



Hab. On turfy banks at extreme high-water mark, near Round- 

 stone, county Galway, Mr. Wm. M'Calla. 



Fronds rising from a mass of entangled, divaricately branched 

 fibres, densely aggregated into widely spreading ])atches, but not 

 woven together in a continuous mass (each little frond Ibeing di- 

 stinct in itself), from a line to nearly a quarter of an inch in 

 length, and from a quarter to half a line in diameter, erect, cy- 

 lindrical or somewhat club-shaped, obtuse, simple ; the axis com- 

 posed of branched, interwoven fibres, which throw off to the cir- 

 cumference club-shaped ramuli, of precisely the same nature and 

 nearly the same form as those of C. tomentosum. Towards the 

 base of the frond these ramuli are less abundant, and there the 

 entangled fibres which compose the centre are more apparent : 

 towards the apex nothing is seen, under the microscope, but the 

 clavate tips of the radiating ramuli, closely set together, giving 

 that part, as ]\Ir. ]Moore observes, the appearance of " a small 

 pickling cucumber.^' The colour is much faded in my specimen, 

 and the endochrome nearly destroyed, but traces of a rich grass- 

 green remain on some fronds. The fructification, as yet unknowTi, 

 will probably be very similar to that of C. tomentosum. 



Ann. ^- Mag. N. Hist. Vol. xiii. Y 



