ITS STRUCTURE. 191 



very slender branching plant. (Plate IX. Fig. 1 .) It is 

 altogether about as thick as fine sewing cotton ; an 

 irregularly winding thread creeps along the frond of 

 the sea-weed, clinging firmly to it as it goes, yet not 

 so tenaciously but that it may be pulled away with- 

 out dividing. This creeping root sends ofi" frequent 

 rootlets, which crossing each other appear to anasto- 

 mose, making a sort of net- work of a few oblong areas. 

 Free stalks shoot up here and there from the creeping 

 stem, one of which in my specimen is upwards 

 of three inches in length : they show a very slight 

 disposition to ramification ; but send forth at short 

 intervals the polype-branchlets, irregularly on all sides. 

 A few of these are compound, one branchlet giving 

 origin to another from its side. The creeping fibre, 

 the stalk, and the branchlets are seen under the 

 microscope to be tubular, and the two latter are .mark- 

 ed throughout their course with close-set rings, or 

 false joints, apparently produced by the annular infold- 

 ing of a small portion of the integument. (Fig. 2.) The 

 tube is of a yellowish-brown colour, sufficiently trans- 

 lucent to reveal a core or central axis of flesh running 

 along its centre, and sending oif branches into the 

 poh^e-branchlets, from the open tips of w^hich the 

 flesh emerges in the form of a thickened oblong head, 

 somewhat club-shaped, whence the name Coryne, (from 

 v.op^jv'fi, a club) wdiich has been assigned to this 

 genus by naturalists. The tube or sheath becomes 

 membranous, or I think gelatinous, (like that of some 

 RotiferaJ at its margin, the ultimate three or four 

 rings being evidently soft, scarcely consistent, viscid 

 (entangling extraneous matters), almost colourless, 



