RED ALG^. 205 



or keep its place against the beating of the fierce 

 waves, we often find numbers of these worm-like 

 fronds fastened and flourishing. 



At Marblehead, in early June, I have seen these 

 boulders lying clean, smooth, and hard, warming in 

 the sun, when the tide was out, with no trace of 

 vegetation on them. In early July, I have found 

 the young fronds of the Nemalion just sprouting up, 

 half an inch high or so. By the middle or last of 

 August, they would be a foot long, full grown, and 

 in perfect fruit. But on visiting the place in Octo- 

 ber, I have found no trace of them left. 



They have ripened, produced the living crop of 

 spores, discharged them into the sea, and so having 

 accomplished their life-function, have vanished again 

 from among living forms. 



Where and how the spores pass the intervening 

 months, from October to June, in the midst of the 

 furious waves, and then come back to their native 

 habitat, on the smooth, rounded faces of these bare 

 boulders, there to germinate and grow, and accom- 

 plish the circle of their life-history, " is something no 

 fellow can find out ;" and it always seemed to me 

 a very wonderful and mysterious thing. 



Nemalion niidtifidum has a cord-like frond as 

 thick as a match, six to twelve inches long, when 



