Dii'ectio7is for preserving Sea Plants. 151 



Its giutinosity also causes much difficulty in preserving good spepi- 

 mens in the usual way, from its strong adhesion to the drying paper 

 placed over it. The best management is to spread it and allow it to 

 dry at leisure exposed to the air ; in doing so it gives out a quantity 

 of mucus of a brown colour, which tinges the paper along the sides of 

 each branch, but this gives rather a richness and beauty to the speci- 

 men than acts as a deformity. This mucus often has a glistening ap- 

 pearance like the dried slime of a snail. 



Chorda Filum. — Very common, growing most luxuriantly in si- 

 tuations somewhat sheltered from the violence of the open sea. It 

 need not be spread in water, but if placed on white paper, and submit- 

 ted to pressure under drying papers, by frequently changing these it 

 will remain firmly attached to the former. By letting it steep in fresh 

 water for several days to deprive it of its elasticity, it may be rolled 

 into a spiral coil and then dried as above. It thus assiimes an interest- 

 ing though perhaps unnatural and fantastic appearance. 



Dictyota dichotoma. — Not uncommon, the variety /3 (intricata) is 

 very frequent on the Larne shore, though the normal form is rare, 

 grows extremely flaccid soon after immersion in fresh water, and the 

 easiest way to preserve it is to clean it in a plate with sea water, and 

 to spread it immediately on the paper ready to receive it in the fresh 

 water. 



Delesseria sanguinea. — This species has its colour very much 

 beautified by letting it steep in fresh water for five or six hours or 

 longer : this changes it from a garnet to a rich rose red, though it does 

 not always retain when dried the same beauty of tint which it ex- 

 hibits when moist. I found specimens at Cairnlough in June, with 

 the footstalks crowded with fructification, though it is comm^only 

 found in this state in winter and spring. It sometimes acqu.ires a 

 monstrous bulk ; a single frond of one specimen in my collection ga- 

 thered at Cairnlough Bay in July, measuring in length lOi inches (in- 

 dependent of the footstalk,) and at its middle 1\ inches in breadth.* 

 The finest specimens of the usual form of the plant I have ever seen, 

 were gathered at Groomsport on Belfast Lough. 



Delesseria sinuosa. — The colour of this is also rendered more beau- 

 tiful by steeping several days in fresh water. It is very common on 

 the Antrim coast, and grows to a great size. A frond of one of the 



* It is excessively plaited at the edges, as are some of the other fronds from 

 the same specimen, wliich are also cordate at the base in short, the variety ^ (la- 

 tifolia) of Captain Carmichael, Eng. Flor. Vol. v. Part i. p. 285, but consider- 

 ably larger than these described. 



