Ramaley : observations on egregia menziesii. 3 



long as wide. It is slightly narrowed both at base and apex. 

 The lamina is longitudinally plicate with short wrinkles 

 and linear thickenings. Since the plants are exposed to 

 the beating of the surf portions of the lamina or even the 

 entire lamina with a part of the rachis frequently become torn 

 away. 



Proliferations. — These occur on both rachis and lamina and 

 arise as outgrowths of the merismatic area. These are the 

 " leaves " or " laminae " of authors. About four different kinds 

 of proliferations may be distinguished. These are the ordi- 

 nary spatulate or ovate or cuneate form, the branched laciniate 

 form, the vesicle-bearing forms and the short cuneate gonidia- 

 bearing form. {Plate III., Pigs. i—2j.) 



These short cuneate proliferations occur all along the margins 

 of the rachis of old fronds scattered among the longer prolifer- 

 ations. In July not very many of the plants were actually pro- 

 ducing gonidia, although these proliferations were present. 

 Whether all of these are capable at some time of producing 

 gonidangia is not known. 



Areschoug speaks of " capillary" proliferations. These are 

 probably the branched laciniate kind which in drying become 

 much shrunken and could easily be called "capillary." The 

 same author, who is followed by De Toni, describes the gonid- 

 iophylls as jugate. This is certainly not the case in fresh 

 material. Kjellman 5 says that there are certain proliferations, 

 like the usual spatulate form, except that they are irregularly 

 ribbed, and that they bear the sporangia. This statement is 

 quite incorrect. The gonidiophylls are always short, only i or 

 2 cm. long, while the ordinary proliferations are three or four 

 times as long. Besides this they are not ribbed at all. 



The proliferations of the lamina are always shorter than 

 those of the stipe and air vesicles and gonidiophylls are never 

 present on the lamina. The longest proliferations of any given 

 branch occur near the region of growth between rachis and 

 lamina, i. e., as the branch becomes older it produces longer 

 outgrowths. The longest proliferations of the lamina are usu- 

 ally from 4 to 6 cm. in length while those of the stipe are 9 to 

 12 cm. The branched proliferations are more abundant on the 

 lamina than on the stipe. 



Air vesicles, as indicated above, occur on the rachis, never 

 on the lamina. They are the swollen and lengthened stalks of 



