SEA-WEEDS. 109 



its interior is pulpy and succulent. In some cases 

 it has a yellow, slimy substance on it : and the 

 author of these pages having wound a piece 

 around the hand, when gathering it up from the 

 beach, had a stain on the fingers remaining for 

 some time after touching it. In Orkney, where 

 it is called Drew, it is very abundant, and it 

 yields excellent kelp. Dr. Greville observes, that 

 in regard to its duration it seems to commence its 

 vegetation in the spring, and to arrive at maturity 

 in the early part of the spring following. It turns 

 black in drying, and requires well washing in 

 fresh water to deprive it of the slimy substance 

 with which it is covered. The cup is in this case 

 the true frond, the long thongs being merely the 

 seed-vessels, and both parts should be preserved 

 for the herbarium by the collector of sea- weeds. 



Most sea- weeds have some kind of root, or rather 

 means of attachment to the soil on which they 

 grow. This is merely a continuation of their leafy 

 substance, the fixed end of the plant swelling out 

 when it roots itself. Some have a callous disc, 

 others a tough leathery fibre, and there are besides 

 species of marine weeds which grow on sand, and 

 are therefore provided with branching roots, in 

 some measure resembling those of land plants. 

 There are, however, some few sea-weeds which 

 have no point of attachment, but which grow in 

 floating masses or individual clusters in the sea 

 itself. The celebrated Gulf-weed is one of these. 

 This plant, which is the floating Fucus of the 

 older authors, is by writers of our Marine Floras 

 always enumerated among the British plants ; but 

 all agree that it is not properly native to our 

 shores, though often cast on them by- the waves, 



