112 COLLINS AND HEEVEY. 



1. H. MUSCiFOKMis (Wulf.) Lamouroux, 1813, p. 43; Hauck, 

 1885, p. 188, fig. 81; P. B.-A., No. 2185; Fucus musciformis Wulfen 

 in Jacquin, 1789, p. 154, PL XIV, fig. 3. Rein; Kemp; Miss 

 Peniston; Dingle Bay, Bailey's Bay, Jan., St. David's Island, Feb., 

 Grasmere, March, Buildings Bay, Heron Bay, April, Hervey; 

 Hungry Bay, April, Cooper's Island, Aug., Collins. Generally dis- 

 tributed; the well developed plants with long, virgate branches, 

 beset with short ramuli, and with tips hooked, are not to be mis- 

 taken for anything else, but young and stunted forms are hard to 

 distinguish from other species of the genus. 



Wulfen's type was from Trieste, where he found the plant growing 

 on crabs for sale in the fish market. His plate is excellent, and shows 

 a slender form with filiform ramuli, often with constricted bases. We 

 have seen similar plants from the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, 

 and on the American shore from Cape Cod to Florida and the West 

 Indies. A form different in appearance has been distributed by 

 Bornet, collected at Biarritz; it is stouter, the ramuli shorter and 

 more patent, and mostly with distinctly wider base, in dried specimens 

 often like rose thorns; hooked tips are very rare in this form, common 

 in the other. This form we have seen from various parts of the At- 

 lantic coast of France, and on the American coast from Beaufort, 

 N. C, to Florida and the West Indies. The two extreme forms are 

 distinct in appearance, though less characteristic forms can be found. 

 Sterile plants can be found in both, but as far as we have observed, 

 cystocarpic plants usually have all the ramuli of the thorn-like type, 

 always some ramuli of this form; while tetrasporic plants have the 

 filiform ramuli with base ultimately constricted. The appearance 

 of the two types is so different that in Agardh's treatment of the genus, 

 1851, p. 441, the former would come under Sect. I, Virgatae, " ramuUs 

 adultioribus basi constrictis," the other, p. 446, Sect. Spinuligerae, 

 "ramulis subulatis, a basi latiore acuminatis." Both forms occur in 

 Bermuda. 



2. H. CERvicoRNis J. G. Agardh, 1851, p. 451; 1876, p. 564. Miss 

 Peniston; Old Ferry, April, Hervey. This lacks the hooked apices 

 of H. rnvsciformis, and is a more slender and more densely branched 

 plant; but the line between the two species is by no means clear. 



3. H. spiNELLA (Ag.) J. G. Agardh, 1847, p. 14; Sphaerococcus 

 spinellus Agardh, 1822, p. 323. Cave by Gravelly Bay, Apr., Hervey. 

 Forming a dense, inextricable mat on rocks, usually 1-2 cm. thick. 



There is probably no genus of red algae of this region the species of 

 which are so poorly defined, and the plants so little characteristic, as 



