48 SEA MOSSES. 



Bryopis plumosa,* Lam. 



Perhaps the most beautiful of our green Algae is 

 the one here named. The artist gives, in Plate I., 

 an admirable representation of a typical plant col 

 lected by my friend Mr. A. R. Young, at Hell Gate, 

 N. Y. The picture will give you a better idea of 

 this interesting plant than any description in mere 

 words. But it had better be said, that it com- 

 monly grows in tufts, a considerable number of 

 fronds from the same point, from two to six inches 

 high. The leading filament is beset all around, or 

 sometimes on two opposite sides only, with long 

 widely spreading branches, which are shorter toward 

 the top of the plant. These, in their upper half, 

 are clothed with long or short, straight branchlets, so 

 placed as to give the plant a decidedly plumose or 

 feathery appearance. It grows upon the rocks, or 

 parasitical upon other Algae, in shaded tide pools 

 along our rocky shores. Mr. Collins informs me 

 that it may be found upon the muddy bottoms of 

 Mystic River, ''where the tide ebbs and flows twice 

 in twenty-four hours." I found some very beautiful 

 si^ecimens of it growing in a clear pool beside over- 

 hanging rocks on Ram Island, off the Marblehead 



♦ Plumosa=featheiy. 



