BRIEFER ARTICLES. 
NEREOCYSTIS LUETKEANA. 
(WITH ONE FIGURE) 
This giant kelp is one of the most common, and certainly one of the 
most striking algae of the shores of northwest America. Its cylindrical, 
hollow stalks, as much as 21™ long, gradually widening from a diameter 
of 1°™ below to 10°™ above, surmounted by a bulb as much as 20° 
in diameter and provided with a crown of leaf-like fronds 3-9™ long; its 
habitat on submerged rocks over which it forms brown patches acres in 
extent, a warning to fishermen and pilots, and so dense that only with great 
difficulty can one get a rowboat through them; its presence everywhere 
in still waters and stranded along shores, torn loose and transported by 
Waves and wind, attract the attention of every casual traveler along north 
Pacific shores. Two things concerning this plant at once impress the 
botanist, viz.: its remarkably rapid growth and its manner of solving the 
Problems of life. 
1. Growth.—We have here a plant 15-21™ long,’ reported to reach a 
length of over go™,? but probably erroneously; MACMILLAN? mentions 80 
feet. Harveys states that it is growing at all seasons; fishermen and 
pilots, however, say that it disappears in winter. I knew the June condi- 
tion of these plants, and I had accurately located several beds of them 
hear the Marine Station of the University of Washington at Friday Har- 
bor, Wash., during the summers of 1904 and 1905. On March 10, 1906, 
I made another trip to these beds with a view to determining whether or 
hot this gigantic plant is anannual. The fishermen are partly right. Except 
for stragglers here and there, the kelps are gone; while those remaining 
were nearly all decayed and loose, with their fronds mostly torn away. 
Where the plants were floating freely, the remaining ones were yet in fair 
Condition as to decay, as salt water prevents rapid bacterial action; but 
it required considerable searching to find a dozen good specimens. 
Drifting over the reefs one can see, through a glass-bottomed bucket, 
on the bottom 3 to 9™ below, young plants of Nereocystis 1.25 to 2.5™ 
" SAUNDERs, Algae of Harriman Alaska Expedition. Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci. 3:431- 
* ENGLER & PRANTL, Die natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien 12: 259. 
$ Bull. Torr. Bot. Club 26: 273-299. 1899. 
*Sea mosses 87, 
143] [Botanical Gazette, vol. 42 
