322 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [NOVEMBER 
unit and taken into the mind without reference to their different 
ages, a comparison might be instituted with such forms as 
Alaria, in which the sporophylls are lateral at the base of the 
main frond. In Lessonia the two middle younger laminae would 
represent the central portion of the generalized lamina, while 
the outer pair of sporophylls occupying a lateral position would 
represent the wings. Year after year, during the life of the plant, 
the process of basal splitting, exfoliation of the tip, and dichot- 
omy of the stipe continues and there are constantly present 
groups of laminae typically in fours, the two inner representing 
the midrib portion (in which the basal split actually occurs), and 
the two outer essentially marginal areas of the hypothetical 
single lamina. Without developmental stages, comprising * 
series of young plants for comparison, it is scarcely possible to 
settle the points that have been raised. 
The genus Lessonia, founded by Bory,? has not a very large 
literature. The most entertaining account of the remarkable 
plants classed under this genus is that of Hooker and Harvey 
the Flora Antarctica already cited. Here is pictured very vividly 
the habit of the antarctic forms as they appeared to the young 
Hooker upon his cruise as assistant-surgeon of H. M. S. Erebus, 
under command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross. 
This and the following are truly wonderful Alge, 
water or on the beach; for they are arborescent, dichoto 
trees, with the branches pendulous and again divided into sprays, fro fet 4 
hang linear leaves 1-3 feet long. The trunks usually are about 5-10 
long, as thick as the human thigh, rather contracted at 
again diminishing upwards. The individual plants or a asiderable 
or solitary, but gregarious, like the pine or oak, extending Over ah 4 during 
surface, so as to form a miniature forest, which is entirely submerge oe 
high-water or even half-tide, but whose topmost branches project . oa 
surface at the ebb. To sail in a boat over these groves 0m 4 calm oe ant- . 
the naturalist a delightful recreation; for he may there witness, 1? < re 
arctic regions, and below the surface of the ocean, as busy 4 scene as Is P 7 
sented by the coral reefs of the tropics. t Le soni q 
Hooker goes on to say how the massive Sten : d 7 
fuscescens have been mistaken by ship-masters for driftwoo% . 
3’Bory: Duperry. Voy. Bot. Crypt. 1828. 
