266 Dr. R. Caspary on a new British Alga. 



tion, not studied in the closet alone, but amidst the plains and 

 rocks, the woods and streams, and even in the recesses of the 

 " vasty deep/^ 



In this way, such master-minds as Sedgwick, Murchison, 

 Owen, Lyell, Forbes and others, have read the pages of the 

 book of nature, and have shown us how to unravel its mysteries, 

 and to study and appreciate the glorious handiwork of an Omni- 

 potent Creator. 



XXIV. — Description of a new British Alga belonging to the genus 

 Schizosiphon, KUtz. By Robert Caspary, Ph.D. &c. 



[With a Plate.] 



■ Schizosiphon Warrenia, Cas^, 



Char. Gen, Kiitzing, Phyc. Gen. p. 233 ; Spec. Alg. p. 327. 

 Char. Spec. Fastigatim ramoso, infima cellula ramorum latiori, 



hemispherica, laterah, ochreis obscuris, fibris ssepe spiralibus, 



apicibus ramorum longe attenuatis. 



Locality. Near Mainporth, Falmouth, highest water-mark. 

 Fragments also in a specimen of Schizothrix Creswellii, Harv., 

 collected by the Rev. R. Creswell near Sidmouth. Plymouth. 



The plant forms a solid crust over the horizontal rock to the 

 extent of many square feet in larger or smaller patches from 

 ^-^" in thickness, throwing up on the surface little spherical 

 elevations of different diameter and height. It grows particu- 

 larly vigorous where fresh water runs down the cliiF. The colour 

 is in the fresh state a dark, dull, blackish green, in the decayed 

 a tan-brown, and on the rocks the greater part of the plant is of 

 the latter colour. It feels slimy and slippery. 



If we apply a small power to a thin vertical section of the 

 plant, we have the view represented in PI. YIII. fig. 9. Thin 

 stems of a light green colour branch repeatedly dichotomously in 

 the upper part, the branches being all parallel, and each drawn 

 out into a thin, hair-like apex. Fig. 2 represents one branch, 

 magnified 700 times. The stem and the branches consist of one 

 row of cells, the relative proportion of breadth to length of which 

 is= 1 : i-2, the length being 0-0024 ; 0-0013 ; 0-0016 ; 0-0018 ; 

 0-0025 ; 0-0026; 0-0023 of a duodecimal French line. Fig. 6 

 and 8 represent such cells ; they are square, and rounded at the 

 corners, and as two often lie together as if they were still one, 

 i. e. not separated from each other, as in fig. 8, it is evident the 

 increase of cells is effected by a division-wall growing in the 

 middle of the lengthened cells ; therefore two together are often 



