KONGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAK. BAND 20. N:0 5. 241 



Syn. Laminaria digitata Klebn, NordL Alg. p. 33; ex parte; excl. f. stenophylla. 



» » IjIndbl. Bot. Not. p. 57; ex parte. (?) 



» » Post, et EnpR. 111. Alg. p. II. (?) 



» » ScHRENK, Ural. Eeise, p. 546; ex parte. (?) 



» » ScHUBELER, in Heugl. Reise. p. 317. 



» » SoMMERF. Spitsb. PI. p. 232. (?) 



» » Zeller, Zweite d. Polarf. p. 85. (?) 



» flexicaulis Foslie, 1. c. p. 19; exol. L, digitata var. stenophylla Harv. 



» » Nyl. et Ssel. Herb. Penn, p. 73. 



Remark on the species. After having lately had the opportunity of examining a 

 considerable number of Laminaria digitata auct. from different parts of the Scandi- 

 navian coast, I cannot but admit unconditionally that there are to be found here at 

 least two well marked and easily distinguished species, on the one hand that which 

 Scandinavian algologists have been accustomed to call L. digitata and which is the 

 commonest, on the other hand that described by Le Jolis under the name of L. Clustoni. 

 The former species is partly identical with the L. flexicaulis of the just-mentioned author, 

 which includes however also Harvey's L. digitata var. stenophylla. As to the last-named 

 alga, I am of opinion, for reasons to be stated afterwards, that it ought as yet to be 

 considered a separate species. L. Clustoni has only lately, by the comprehensive re- 

 searches of J. E. Areschoug, been known with certainty as a Scandinavian species. 

 Since he has called attention to it by private communications, it has been observed at 

 several parts of the Scandinavian coast, in some localities even abundant. It is, however, 

 far more rare on the west coast of Sweden than that species which has hitherto passed 

 under the name of L. digitata. This name I think fit to retain for this species, while 

 I call the other species by the name of L. Clustoni, which it received when it was first 

 decidedly discerned as a distinct species. To replace the name of L. Clustoni by L. 

 digitata, as Foslie has proposed to do, and rebaptize the plant called L. digitata by 

 recent Scandinavian algologists, J. G. Agardh, J. E. Areschoug a. o., by the name of 

 L. flexicaulis, can hardly be justified by the fact of earlier authors having described and 

 quoted L. Clustoni Le Jol. under the name of L. digitata. For it certainly is pretty 

 probable that these authors have called or at least would have called even L. flexicaulis 

 by the name of L. digitata, and it is impossible to detei-mine at the present time whether 

 Linnaeus understood by his name of L. digitata both the algaB in question or only the 

 one of them and in such a case which. The change of names proposed by Foslie 

 would scarcely lead to anything but to throw the already entangled nomenclature into 

 still greater confusion. 



The introduction of the name flexicaulis by Le Jolis is hardly justifiable. It 

 cannot be allowed, by the laws established for names-giving, to reject altogether the 

 Linnasan name of L. digitata, and this should have been done in this case so much the 

 less because Edmonston retained that name for the plant which Le Jolis regards as 

 identical with his own L. flexicaulis, while he employed the name of L. Clustoni adopted 

 by Le Jolis for the species separated from the old L. digitata. 



K. "Vet. Akad. Handl. Bd 20. N:o 5. <J ■' 



