140 Dr. J. E. Gray on Codiophyllum. 



ending in a triangular, wedge-sliaped frond, with the stem 

 extending a slight distance from its base ; the stem is thick 

 and gradually tapers as it extends in lengtli, and is affixed to 

 a rock by a rather extended base. The older fronds become 

 more or less semicircular, with one or two slight lobes on the 

 circumference, and the stem becomes divided at the base of the 

 frond into several branches, which spread out in a palmated 

 manner and thus support the diiferent parts of the frond, which 

 rarely throws out a rounded lobe of a similar structiu'e from 

 its surface. 



The stem when wet is flesh-coloured, becoming dark brown 

 or blackish when dry ; the frond is green, like the rest of the 

 chlorosperm Alga. 



This plant evidently forms a new family ; and I do not know 

 to what existing group of the green Algce to refer it. The 

 filaments of which the felted net is composed are cylindrical, 

 all of the same size, and in external appearance like the tibre 

 of Gladopliora ; but they appear to be entirely destitute of 

 articulations, and they are very unlike the continuous hbre of 

 the Oscillatoria or Galotlirix^ and they seem to have most 

 alliance with Bryopsis. 



This plant, when roughly dried with other seaweeds as it 

 comes out of the sea (and I have little doubt it is so when it is 

 growing) , has a matted green frond which is thicker and more 

 opaque in the older and more developed specimens, when it 

 looks like a piece of felted cloth just showing the internal 

 stems through some parts of it ; but when it is washed in fresh 

 water and dried between blotting-paper with just sufficient 

 pressure to prevent its curling, the frond loses a great part of 

 its thickness, becomes nearly transparent, shoAvs the details of 

 the network and the internal part of the stem through the 

 substance, very unlike the living state of the plant. 



The genus may be thus defined : — 



CODIOPHYLLUM, 

 The frond expanded, formed of uniform, minute network, 

 matted together so as to form a cloth, and consisting of uni- 

 form cylindrical tubular fibres supported or parasitic on a car- 

 tilaginous solid stem, Avhich pierces the base of the frond and 

 is affixed to the rocks by an expanded base. 



Codioj)hyllum natalense. PI. IX. 



Stem branched, tapering, ending in a triangular wedge- 

 shaped frond, which becomes more or less semicircular, and 

 sometimes furnished with one or more lobes on the surface. 



Hob. Coast of Natal. 



