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ANTONY GEPP AND ETHEL S. GEPP. 
A small plant of Zonaria was found, which is too young to identify ; but it is 
interesting as the first record of this genus from the South Polar regions. 
Desmarestia harveyana (D. media of the Flora Antarctica) appears to have been 
abundant, and a specimen of over six feet in length has been brought home in the 
collection. 
Phyllophora antarctica is the Antarctic congener of the northern species 
P. interrupta. 
Spongoclonium orthocladum is a new species, allied to S. hirtum (Callithamnion 
hirtum of the Flora Antarctica). 
The conditions of life that control the algal flora at both poles are peculiar, 
and are not easily realised by those who have never visited the polar regions. The 
two totally distinct seasons—on the one hand, the prolonged winter night, together 
with the impenetrable crust of ice that effectually cuts off the sea from contact with 
the gases of the atmosphere sometimes for years, the increasing salinity of the water, 
due to the rejection of salt during the formation of the deep layers of ice, the 
equable, low temperature of the denser, deeper waters below the ice; on the other hand, 
the long summer day, accompanied by the breaking of the ice and melting of the 
ice and snow, the layer of fresher water on the surface, which slowly mingles with 
the sea-water below, the renewed absorption of atmospheric gases, the assimilation of 
carbonic acid excreted by the animals living there—these and other factors must 
profoundly influence and modify algal life and development; and data concerning 
the effect of these conditions upon alg have yet to be accumulated. 
A critical comparison of the marine floras of the two Polar regions should bring 
out points of great interest ; and a fair field in this respect lies open to that expedition 
which is the last to publish the report of its collection of marme alge. Any attempt 
to draw up such a comparison now would necessarily be premature and incomplete. 
We await with interest the publication of the results of the other expeditions, in 
the hope that they may yield a more complete representation of the algal flora 
peculiar to the Antaretic region, and that incidentally they may throw light upon 
those points which we are compelled to leave in obscurity. 
PHAOPHYCE/E. 
1. ZONARIA sp. 
Off Cape Wadsworth, Coulman Island. 
A small, immature plant, 2 em. high, the thallus of which is still monostromatic 
throughout. Though unable to name the species, we think it worth while to include 
the plant in our list, as the genus has not yet been recorded from the far South. 
Zonaria is here used in its old and wide sense, as the specimen is too fragmentary to 
admit of further classification. 
