274 THE FORESHORES OF KEA. 



beautiful, picturesque, and fruitful spot than this-almost wrapped 

 round by the river — it would be hard to find in the three kingdoms. 



The sea-weeds common to these shores are first of all Fucus 

 vesiculosus and its variety Fucus spiralis. Next comes Fucus 

 nodosuSjYerj marked by its fine olive colour and solitary elliptical 

 air vessels. Fucus serratus is equally common ; these all grow on 

 rocks and shingle, and are used in the fruit gardens and as a 

 dressing for grain, especially barley. 



If we reckon all the Fuci we find on our shores, we may 

 count from time to time almost all the denizons of the great 

 deep. 



In the rolls of sea-wrack washed u]3 by winter storms from 

 the deep waters outside, oft-times very conspicuous are the bright 

 green ribband-like leaves of the Zostera Marina, along with huge 

 specimens of the deep water Tangles, Laminaria Digitata, with its 

 congener, the Great Furbelowed Fucus of Sowerby, laminaria 

 bullosa, also called St. Mary's Thistle, and the largest of the 

 British Fuci, besides magnificent fronds of Fucus saccharimis. 

 This last fucus attains great perfection on the S.W. coast, and 

 although Sowerby gives the extreme length of frond as six feet, 

 there is one hanging to dry at Woodbury now quite 8 feet long, 

 nearly a foot wide at base, and all depending from a stalk as big 

 as an ordinary lead pencil. When quite fresh it looked like some 

 gorgeous sash of silk — like a marvellous triumph of the millinery 

 art, all puckered, frilled, and furbelowed throughout its entire 

 length. This handsome variety of Fucus saccharinus is figured 

 in the 9th plate of Stackhouse's elaborate work. 



Along with the rolls of marine Algse cast up on our shores we 

 also often find the Mermaid's Purse with all its curling tendrils, 

 also the Nidus of Buccinum undatum, fragments of Cliondrus 

 crispus, and I am inclined to think battered relics from the far 

 off 3Iar De Sargasso, the whole roll sometimes bound round with 

 the slimy olive-ropes of Chorda filum, for which we need not go 

 farther than Carrick Roads. Fucus siliquosus and F. tuhcrcolosus 

 turn up sometimes, but I have never noticed the edible winged 

 Fucus Alaria esculenta, though it grows on our coast. Nor have 

 I noticed the Sea Lettuce or Green Laver, Ulva latidsima, growing 

 so far up as our shoreline. 



