ZOOPHYTES. 



247 



a branch of the plume-like brake of our woods and 

 heaths in shape, and tiny shells often hang about 

 its branches. It is of a horn colour, becoming 

 more clear and transparent in drying, and placed 

 in the herbarium it seems 

 like a branch made of amber* 

 It varies in height from four 

 to twelve inches. The stem 

 is slightly zigzag, and some- 

 times the branches have 

 other branches on them. 

 Even when seen under a 

 common magnifying glass, 

 such as naturalists usually 

 have about them, we can dis- 

 cover in the little teeth which 

 are adown the branches, a 

 minute aperture, which is 

 the opening of the polype 

 cells, the little tube or flask- 

 shaped dwellings of the 

 animals. In the winter 

 time the little vesicles or bladders containing the 

 germs, are thickly scattered over the branches. 

 Sometimes the sea-fir is tinged with a red hue, 

 which in some cases remains on the shining stems 

 of the dried specimens. Other species of Sertularia 

 are also occasionally tinged with this hue, though 

 the cause of this peculiarity is undiscovered. 



Very often, on examining the Knobbed, or 

 Serrated, or Bladder Fucus, we find growing on 

 its frond the horny shoots, scarcely larger than a 

 sewing thread, of the zoophyte called the Sea-oak 

 Coralline (Sertularia pumila), which received its 

 familiar name from its frequency on the bladder 



MAGNIFIED BRANCH OF SEA-FIR 



