220 INTRODUCTION TO CllYPTOGAMlC BOTANY. 



stem is employed for fishing-lines when dry, and the large 

 cylinder is used as a siphon for pumping water out of their 

 boats, in the same way in which Ecldonia huccinalis is fre- 

 quently used at the Cape. Alarm esculenta has already been 

 noticed more than once as affording acceptable food, the 

 part consumed being principally the fine but delicate midrib, 

 and the lateral appendages which bear the fruit, and which give 

 rise to the familiar name of the plant in Scotland, viz., Badder- 

 locks.* The stems of Echlonia buccmalis are used as men- 

 tioned above, and are also formed by the Cape herdsmen into 

 rude trumpets. Our own species abound in Kelp, and form a 

 large portion of the manure which is collected on the south 

 eastern coasts of England. Twelve genera are enumerated by 

 J. Agardh, of which three belong to the leaf-bearing division. 

 Of the first two, Adenocystis and Scytosiphon, or Chorda, in 

 which the whole tubular frond is covered with fruit, the latter 

 only occurs on our coasts ; the former is a South Sea plant, 

 and differs from the other in its saccate form. Cliorda filwrn 

 is remarkable for the great length to which its threadlike 

 stems extend, which make them, when dry, like Nereocystis, 

 fit for fishing-lines. In passing through the Sounds of the 

 western islands, as between Kerrera and the Mainland, they 

 have a very striking appearance in the clear water, as they lean 

 in the direction of the tide, their surface being sometimes 

 clothed with delicate colourless filaments. Laminaria con- 

 tains something under twenty species, of which a few have the 

 habit and size of Punctaria. Most of the finer species grow 

 on the north eastern coast of Asia. To this succeed the old 

 Fucus bulbosus and Clathrus, of which the former is a well- 

 kuown inhabitant of our coasts, and the latter is remarkable 

 for its perforated frond. Alaria is one of the great ornaments 

 of our northern seas, for its beautiful costate frond, and singu- 



* This seaweed is certainly relished on the western coast of Scotland. 

 I have known peasants bring it over from the Isle of Mull to the main- 

 land, as an agreeable present to their friends. The Eev. A. W. Brown 

 suggests that the term Badderlocks is a corruption of Balderlocks. See 

 Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. i., p. 22. The name Murlings alludes, 

 probably, to the membranous frond. 



