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The plants are also utilizable as fertil- 

 izer, and are collected for this purpose 

 upon many coasts. The Chinese in 

 particular use quantities of kelp for 

 food, and bales of the dried seaweed 

 are an important article of export from 

 Japan. 



Individual kelp plants begin their 

 lives as microscopic spherical olive-green 

 gonidia released in immense numbers 

 from the myriad sacs of the soral areas. 

 Carried about by the waves, they find 

 lodgment in some tiny crevice of the 

 rocks, or upon the body of some plant 

 already established. The little sphere 

 becomes divided by partitions, at first 

 parallel with the substratum, and de- 

 velops into an ovoid body somewhat 

 smaller than the head of a pin and 

 affixed by a little circular disc, known 

 as the primitive disc. Thus at a very 

 early age the main distinction between 



