RED ALG^. 157 



cases, a very pretty specimen. The color is a light 

 brown. 



Qems.—RHODOMELA* Ag. 



Rhodomela subfusca, Ag. 



The dark brown Rhodomela is a common plant 

 along our shores, from New York northward. It 

 seems to be quite at home in all northern seas, as 

 it has been found in Nova Zembla, and the Ochotsch 

 Sea, as well as in all northern Europe and America. 

 The ripe, robust, black, typical form is far from 

 handsome ; but the young plants, which go under 

 the variety names of Rochii and gracilis, are ex- 

 tremely beautiful. It is a perennial, and its winter 

 and summer aspects differ greatly. In the winter 

 all the finer portions of the frond fall away, leaving 

 the long, lateral branches, and the main stem stand- 

 ing stiff, naked, dark and ungainly. But in the 

 spring and early summer, when it is clothed in a 

 new growth of delicate brown branchlets, it is a very 

 graceful and charming plant. 



It is found attached, by a thin discoid hold- 

 fast, to rocks, stones, and shells, near or below 



* Rhodomela Red-black. 



