402 Dr. J. E. Gray on Elachista stellaris. 



contain a specimen of Conferva curta^ and I am not able to 

 compare Mrs. Gatty's specimen with Mr. Dillwyn's. 



In the ^ English Botany ' a plant is figured under the name 

 of Conferva curta (t. 2034) , which was drawn from a specimen 

 communicated to Mr. Dawson Turner by Miss Hill, who found 

 it growing parasitically on Fuci in the sea near Plymouth. 

 Dr. Harvey figured Elachista curta in the ^ Phycologia Bri- 

 tannica ' (t. 332), from a poor specimen in the herbarium of 

 Sir W. Hooker at Kew, observing that no one has met with 

 it of late years. This specimen is most likely the one that 

 Miss Hill gave to Dawson Turner, and it appears to be the 

 only one now within the reach of the student. Unfor- 

 tunately I am precluded by my health from going to Kew to 

 examine it. The figures of Dillwyn and Harvey are very 

 much alike, while that of the ^ English Botany ' is so indif- 

 ferent that one would be by no means certain that it is intended 

 for an Elachista^ if we had not reason to believe the specimen 

 from which the figure was taken is the same as that figured by 

 Dr. Harvey. Dillwyn's and Harvey's figures induce me to 

 believe that it is different from the species discovered by Mrs. 

 Gatty, as they both represent the ends of the fibres as rounded, 

 and not truncated and torn, as they would have been if it repre- 

 sented a worn specimen of E. stellaris. Agardh refers E. curta 

 of Dillwyn (t. 76), with doubt, and E. hreviarticulata of Suhr, 

 as synonyms to the Elachista glohulosa of the ^ Species, Ge- 

 nera et Ordines Algarum' (i. p. 11). Areschoug gives the 

 name of E. curta to the Elachista Jlaccida of Harvey. So 

 there is no little confusion about the name of the species of 

 this genus ; and I fear the E. curta of Dillwyn is still to be 

 sought for. 



The British species may be divided into three very natural 

 groups. 



I. The filaments crowded together into a hard, compact 

 cushion, repeatedly forked below, a long filament arising 

 from the end of one and the spore at the tip of another 

 branchlet. Elachista, Kiitzing. 



E. scutulata, Harvey, Ph. Brit. t. 323. 



II. The filaments divergent from below, forming a radiating 

 tuft. The filaments repeatedly furcately branched below, one 

 branchlet ending in a long filament, and the others tipped 

 with a tuft of filaments having the spores at their base. Phy- 

 eophila, Kiitzing. 



E. fucicola, Harvey, Ph. Brit. t. 240. The branched basal 

 fibres long, with long joints. 



