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CATALOGUE OF THE MARINE ALG.E OF THE 



WEST INDIAN REGION. 



By George Murray, F.L.S. 



The region dealt with in the following paper includes the 

 whole West Indian group of Islands, and the mainland coast from 

 Venezuela round the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico to Florida. 

 I have not only included the Bahamas, which obviously belong to 

 the same group as the other islands, but also Bermuda, for the 

 reason that it is a coral island, — the most northern one, — and its 

 marine flora, so far as it is known, has a large proportion of West 

 Indian forms mixed with those of the temperate Atlantic. As to 

 the mainland, I have thought it right not to take forms farther 

 north than Florida, since the coral practically ends there, and I am 

 upheld in this opinion by Prof. Farlow and Mr. Cosmo Melvill. 

 Florida is the only spot on the mainland known to us to be rich in 

 marine Algae. These have been described by Harvey (' Nereis 

 Boreali-Americana'), by Mr. Cosmo Melvill in the 'Journal of 

 Botany ' (1875), by Prof. Farlow in his ' List of the Marine Algaa of 

 the United States 1 (Fish Commission Report, 1876), and in the 

 'Algae Exsiccatse Amer. Bor.' The rest of the mainland appears 

 to be mostly sandy wastes and the like ; though the coasts of Hon- 

 duras, the Mosquito coast, that of Colombia and Venezuela may 

 yet yield good collecting-grounds to enterprising travellers. A few 

 forms from Mexico and from La Guayra (Venezuela), collected by 

 Liebman, are all known to me beyond Florida. 



From the islands we know a great variety of forms. First of all 

 comes Guadeloupe, which leaves even the famous Floridan keys far 

 behind. MM. Maze and Schramm, in their ■ Essai de classification 

 des Algues de la Guadeloupe,' 1870-77, enumerate 811 marine 

 Algae (with 129 more from fresh-water and mineral springs) from 

 that island alone ! In naming them (and the large number of new 

 forms among them) these accomplished workers had the help of the 

 brothers Crouan, and the result is a model of what such work 

 should be. Their exploration of Guadeloupe alone has done more for 

 our knowledge of West Indian Alga than all the other workers put 



abundantly show T s. Fortunately the 

 jgnificent set of these Algae complete, 



but for one or two unimportant forms, and I have been able to use 

 *' ' • ' -■■•«-■•' — OftheAlgas 



Al 



of Barbadoes a good deal is known. Prof. Dickie published a list 

 of them in the Linnean Society's Journal, vol. xiv., founded on 

 specimens collected by the then Governor Sir Rawson Rawson and 

 Miss Watts,— and on others in the Gray Herbarium,— all of which 

 ^e now also in the British Museum. There are also smaller sets from 

 Martinique (Duperrey), Santa Cruz, Cuba (Ramon de la Sagra, 

 Wright— see Farlow in 'American Naturalist,' vol. v., p. 201, and 

 other collectors), Jamaica (Sir Hans Sloane and Chitty), and Ber- 

 muda (Kemp in 'Canadian Naturalist,' vol. ii., p. 145; 

 'Bericht u. d. Senckenberg. Gesellsch.,' 1872-73, p. 151; and 



Rein in 



ai. of Botany.— Vol. 26. [Jwly, 1888.1 o 



