MARINE AQUARIA 



Punctaria latifolia (Grey) or Broad-leaved Dotted Weed, is a variable 

 plant which has a cylindrical stem enlarged into a flat tender frond 3 

 inches wide and 12 inches long, of pale olive-green color, crisped on the 

 edges and dotted with minute spore masses. Very common between 

 tide-marks along the whole Middle Atlantic coast. 



Chorda filum (Stack.) or Mermaid's Fish-line, consists of thread-like 

 tough and elastic cords rising from a disclike holdfast, which reach a 

 length of 10 to 30 feet, dependent upon the depth of water. It affords 

 an anchorage to many of the smaller Algse, which attach themselves to it. 

 Quite common along the Middle Atlantic coast. 



Chordaria divaricata (Ag.) or String Weed, is a bushy tough and 

 elastic dark olive-green plant with threadlike sticky cylindrical branches 

 fastened by a small disc to shells, stones and other algse. It is a deep- 

 water plant usually not over 15 inches high, distributed along the entire 

 Middle Atlantic coast. C. flagelliformis [Ag.) or Whiplash, is a very dark- 

 brown, threadlike plant greatly resembling the foregoing. 



There are quite a number of other Olive-colored Algse, but as none 

 of them should find a place in the marine aquarium, they need not be 

 mentioned. 



Red Marine Alg^. Rhodospermese are mostly of fragile texture 

 and grow in sheltered rock pools, protected from light and the chafing of 

 the waves, or in deep water. Exposed to strong light they lose much of 

 their red color and become greenish, yellowish and white, and soon decay. 

 This group also comprehends some of orange, brown and purple colors, 

 but most of them are a deep red. It is the largest order, and only a few 

 of the most generally distributed forms will be described. 



Corallina officinalis (Linn.) or Coral Weed, is a variable alga both in 

 size and general appearance, which may vary in color from reddish-purple 

 to greenish-red. It is usually from i to 4 inches in height, the frond 

 composed of slightly flattened filaments with the stem and principal 

 branches diverging from the edges ; the plant being composed of small 

 wedge-shaped joints. It grows in great abundance upon rocks, wreckage, 

 and in tidewater pools along the Middle Atlantic coast and in California. 



Belesseria sinuosa (Lam.) or Oak Leaf Weed, is a delicate, often para- 

 sitical, 3 to 8 inch high alga, of which the stem is flattened to form the 

 midrib and veins of the fronds, greatly resembling an oakleaf It is met 

 with in the drift on the beach, and is a deepwater species of fine pink to 

 deep lake-red color. Another form is D. alata (Lam.), having the mar- 

 gins of the lobes entire and the fronds narrower. Both found north of 

 Cape Cod and on the California coast. 



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