THE MARINE ALGAE AND MARINE SPERMATOPHYTES 

 OF THE TOMAS BARRERA EXPEDITION TO CUBA 



By MARSHALL A. HOWE 



The plants named in the following brief report were collected on 

 the western coast of Cuba in May and June, 1914, by Mr. John B. 

 Henderson. Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and Dr. Paul 

 Bartsch, Curator, Division of Marine Invertebrates, of the United 

 States National Museum. An illustrated popular account of the 

 expedition has been written by Mr. Henderson and published in book 

 form under the title, " The Cruise of the Tomas Barrera," ^ the ex- 

 pedition taking its name from that of the Cuban schooner generously 

 placed at the disposal of the explorers by its owners. The col- 

 lecting of algae was incidental to the activities of the expedition 

 in zoological. lines, and while the list of marine algae obtained is not 

 a long one it is longer than any hitherto published for the island of 

 Cuba and includes a considerable number of species not hitherto at- 

 tributed to this island, though some of the latter are represented 

 in unreported collections made by the writer in the vicinity of Guan- 

 tanamo Bay in 1909. Included in the list are one species {Phormi- 

 dium Hendersonii) which the writer is venturing to describe as new 

 and one species (Sarcomenia filamentosa) which was previously 

 known from the type specimens only (from Florida). In view of 

 these facts and in view of the paucity of published lists of Cuban 

 algae, the list of algae of the Tomas Barrera Expedition, even though 

 brief, seems to the writer to be worthy of publication. The list of 

 algae embraces 65 named species and four species that are referred to 

 genus only. In addition to the algae two species of Halophila, 

 marine seed-plants representing a group that is commonly neglected 

 by the collectors both of marine algae and of dry-land sperma- 

 tophytes, are named. Both of these species appear to have been 

 hitherto unreported for Cuba. 



The principal and, it may be said, the only general treatise on the 

 algae of Cuba, is that contributed by C. Montague to Ramon de la 



^8 vo. Pp. i-ix -|- 1-320. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. 

 1916. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 68, No. 11 



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