138 



WEBER- YAIS" BOSSE ON THE 



4 



CUYPTONEMIA, J. Ag 



1. Cryptonemia semixervis (Ag.)> J- Ag. 



J. Agardhj Alg^ Liebmau. p. 11 in not. 



De Toui, Syll. Alg. vol. iv. sect. iv. 1905, p. 1610. 



Saya de Mallia, 55 fms. ; dry specimens. . 



Amirante ; dry specimen. 



Distribution. Mediterranean ; Atlantic ; Red Sea. 



In a dry condition the plants appear to have no midrib, but on moistening a delicate 

 midrib became distinctly visible, and this extended upwards to about the middle of the 

 leaf. The plants are barren. 



2. Cryptonemia spec. 



Saya de Malha, 55 fms. ; dry specimen. 



A poor fragment, but differing from Cryptonemia seminervis by its much thicker frond 



and dark red colour. 



Fam. SQUAMAUIACEiE. 



It is much to be regretted that so many of the specimens of Squamariacese collected 

 by Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner are sterile, for without fruit it is almost impossible to name 

 the genera and species of this puzzling family. I happened to have studied a large 

 collection of Indian F ey ssonnelice before I undertook to name the present collection, and 

 this has helped me to recognize some of the species mentioned hereafter. 



In my " List of the ' Siboga ' Algae " I will treat in detail of the Feyssonnelits, and only 

 mention here that I have found it of great help to keep up a distinction already hinted at 

 by the late lamented Schmitz*, namely, a distinction based on the differences in arrange- 

 ment of the filaments of the hypothallus. These horizontal filaments, which run over 

 the substratum, give oflP the ascending vertical filaments of the perithallus, and Schmitz 

 observed that some hypothalli consisted of straight filaments running close to one 

 another {Feyssonnelia), and that others consisted of curved fan-shaped groups of filaments, 

 as in the basal layer of Cruoriella. To these two subgenera, if I may distinguish them 

 provisionally by such a name, I wish to add a third, difiering in having no hypothallus 

 proper, but a mesothallus, i. e., a layer of cells occupying the middle of the thallus (as is 

 the case, for instance, in Malfsla expansa), which gives off branches both downward and 

 upward. My investigations do not yet allow me to decide whether this division of the 

 genus Peyssonnelia, based as it is upon anatomical characters, is supported by differences 

 in the structure of the fruit. Sometimes this is the case, but my specimens are mostly 



barren. 



Tor this third subgenus I should like to propose the name of Ethelia, in honour of my 



dear friend, Mrs. E. S. Gepp. 



« 



Sclimitz, "Marine Plorideen von Deutsch Ost-Afrika," in Engler's Bot. Jahrbuch, Bd. xxi. Heft 1, 2, 1895, 



p. 173. 



