122 SEA- WEEDS. 



pleasant flavour ; but that it leaves upon the 

 tongue and mouth a disagreeable crust of greenish 

 mucus. The midrib is eaten in its raw state, but 

 it would not easily be digested by any but persons 

 who can take robust exercise, for it is as hard as 

 the raw carrot or turnip of our fields, and to many 

 its fishy, coppery flavour is very unpleasant. 



Three species of Desmarestia are natives of our 

 shores in the summer ; none are rare, but one 

 kind, the spiny species (Desmarestia aculeata), is a 

 very common and elegant sea-weed of most parts 

 of our coast. Most persons accustomed to gather 

 the sea-weeds know this, with its delicate, feathery, 

 graceful branches. Sea- weeds, in general, show to 

 greater advantage when waving in the water than 

 when brought to land, and many lose their beauti- 

 ful iridescent hues when removed from their native 

 element. But it is the waving form of this, which 

 bends with every ripple, which so much pleases us, 

 and which we miss in the dried specimen. When 

 young, it is of a pale delicate green, but as it 

 becomes older it is of a deep olive tint. The 

 fronds are sometimes one or two feet in length, 

 without any vein up the middle, and not broader 

 than a small leaf of the meadow grass. They are 

 much branched; and when the plant is young, 

 little bunches of green threads grow all down 

 them, which, as the plant becomes older, fall off, 

 and are succeeded by tiny sharp spines. If ga- 

 thered while in a young state, it not only assumes 

 a bright verdigris hue in drying, but it will impart 

 that tint to the paper on which it is laid. 



The strap-leaved Desmarestia (Desmarestia 

 ligulata), is a larger sea- weed, with a flat frond, 

 from each side of which issue branches situated 



