162 _ BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MARCH 
this subject will be given under the topics to which they belong. The 
early history of the genus with its taxonomic bearing is omitted, as 
having no place here, but the once credited distribution of Sargassum 
which was convincingly disproved by Kuntze (’81) is a matter of his- 
tory which.deserves at least brief mention. 
Kuntze relates that LINNAEUS believed that a vast area of sea was 
densely covered by Sargassum in active vegetative condition; Hum- 
BOLDT reported that the region surpassed Germany in extent six or 
seven times; Maury stated that it equaled the Mississippi valley; and 
HOECKEL estimated its area to be forty thousand square miles. 
That these views were generally accepted is well known. They led 
to instruction regarding a ‘‘Sargasso Sea,’ whose supposed limits 
were outlined upon maps of the world. Kuntze, by comparing 
his own observations and those of other travelers over routes which 
crossed in different places the outlined area, was able clearly to dis- 
prove the existence of such a “‘sea.”” Sometimes a voyage was made 
through the mapped region and little or no Sargassum was seen, and 
again it appeared somewhat abundantly, but without definite limits 
or fixed location. Storms which sweep tropical shores, near which 
attached Sargassum grows abundantly, were found to be in great part 
accountable for the appearance of the larger quantities of floating 
Sargassum. Kuntze obtained no evidence to substantiate the view 
that floating Sargassum vegetates. It had been believed that floating 
forms of Sargassum consisted of S. bacciferum only, but Kuntze found 
several species floating, and observed that the specimens in herbaria 
which had been collected in mid-ocean and labeled Sargassum bacct- 
ferum according to general belief, could be referred to various species. 
He therefore concludes that there is no characteristic floating species. 
The appearance in mid-ocean of floating masses now and then does 
not seem strange when the authentic distribution and abundance of 
attached Sargassum are recalled. According to KyELLMAN (’93) this 
genus, which includes one hundred fifty species, over half the number 
belonging to the entire family, is found attached along the coast of all 
warm seas, reaches north to Cape Cod in the Atlantic, to Japan in the 
Pacific, and in the south into Australian waters, where it is the most 
abundant. With the extent of this distribution in mind the presence 
of floating masses, especially after storms, is to be expected. 
a Te a ea ach al er ae a a DEO eds WoW rh tes 
