RED ALG.^. 139 



jelly. The artist has made an excellent representa- 

 tion of a beautiful specimen of this plant, in our 

 Plate V. 



The body of the plant is a robust, sparingly but 

 irregularly branched cord, from six inches to two or 

 three feet long, and from once to three times the 

 thickness of a pack-thread. The branches are long, 

 and mostly undivided, and the whole plant is clothed 

 with a fine, delicate body of purple-lake colored 

 hairs, from an eighth to a third of an inch in 

 length. This gives it the appearance of chenille. 

 When a little faded, this fine, silky plush assumes a 

 delicate or bright pink color. The plant grows 

 attached, by a discoid hold-fast, to rocks, stones, 

 wood-work, and other Algae, from low-tide mark to 

 a depth of several fathoms. It is not found north 

 of Cape Cod, but may be looked for in all waters 

 south of that point. I have collected it, in July, 

 at Fort Hamilton, and along the beach toward 

 Coney island, in great abundance — splendid fronds, 

 two feet long — along- with that most brilHant Amer- 

 ican Alga Grinnellia Americana. I have collected 

 it also in fine condition at Newport, east of the 

 first beach, as late as October 4th. In a breezy 

 but not unpleasant walk, which I took along the 

 shore from Falmouth to Wood's Holl, beneath a. 



