112 BRrXlSH SEAWEEDS. 



ramelli. Spores in egg-shaped, pointed conceptacles with 

 or without stalks ; tetraspores in lance-shaped stichidia 

 formed on the ramelli. — Dasta, from the Greek dasus, 

 hairy. 



Feeling that nothing can excel the description which 

 Dr. Harvey gives of this genus in his ' Nereis Boreali- 

 Americana/ I again quote verbatim from that work. 

 He writes, " A large and considerably diversified genus 

 occurring in both hemispheres. As here understood, it 

 is chiefly characterized by the confervoid, jointed ramelli, 

 issuing from a compound polysiphonous, but mostly 

 opaque, and outwardly inarticulate frond; and the lan- 

 ceolate, pod-like receptacles of tetraspores, borne by the 

 confervoid ramelli, out of whose branches they are 

 formed. The ramelli are of the same structure as the 

 articulated fibres which clothe the ends of the young 

 branches in Polysiphonia, Rhodomela, etc., but in those 

 genera they are mostly colourless, very fugacious, and 

 have no connection with the tetrasporic fructification ; 

 in Dasya, on the contrary, they are persistent, contain- 

 ing coloured cells, and finally originating the tetrasporic 

 fructification. In the former cases they accompany the 

 early development of the branches only, in the latter 

 they are characteristic of the species at all ages." 



The British species of this genus, with the exception of 

 D. coccinea, grow chiefly on our southern and western 

 coasts, and are most abundant in the Channel Islands. 

 In all the graces of colour, form, and texture, these 

 exquisite little plants hold a high place among their 

 compeers, and they also possess a virtue by no means 

 common in pretty Sea-weeds — they are very docile un- 

 der the operation of being laid out on paper, spreading 

 themselves over its surface in the mode best adapted to 



