OLIVE COLORED ALG^^. 83 



seen it 200 feet long at San Diego. The account 

 which I give is from their notes. The hold-fast for 

 these larger plants is a great mass of branching roots, 

 " as large as a bushel basket," sometimes three feet 

 broad, and a foot thick, which cling to the rocks and 

 boulders with great tenacity. One or more stems, from 

 a half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter rise from 

 this, putting out leaves on either side alternately, a 

 foot apart at the base, gradually growing nearer toward 

 the end of the stem. The leaves, in the largest plants, 

 are from two to four feet long, and three or four 

 inches wide, stalked, and the stalk swollen into a pear- 

 shaped air vessel, sometimes an inch and a half long, 

 and an inch thick. The leaves are thin, peculiarly 

 wrinkled, of a fine olive color, and along both edges 

 bordered with sharp, spine -like teeth, which point 

 forward. These plants grow in waiter, fifty feet deep 

 or more, in vast forests, coming to the surface 

 and then stretching their leafy fronds far out, prone 

 upon the sea. In this way, great fields of them, 

 sometimes a mile wide and several miles long, are 

 formed, especially near bays, as at San Luis Obespo, 

 Santa Barbara, San Pedro, and San Diego. The 

 stem terminates in a leaf-Hke expansion, and the 

 growth goes forward in a very curious fashion, by the 

 constant splitting off of the side of this terminal leaf. 



