222 INTRODUCTION TO CKYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



in length. The tranks are some five or ten feet long, and a foot 

 thick. Their roots are never bare at the lowest tides, but the 

 leaves are seen floating on the top of the water, or the topmost 

 branches projecting above its surface. " To sail in a boat over 

 these groves on a calm day," says Dr. Hooker, " affords the 

 naturalist a delightful recreation, for he may here witness in 

 the Antarctic regions, and below the surface of the ocean, as 

 busy a scene as is presented by the coral reefs of the Tropics. 

 The leaves of the Lessonioe are crowded with Sertularice and 

 Mollusca, or encrusted with Flustra ; on the trunks parasitic 

 Algse abound, together with Chitons, Limpets, and other shells ; 

 at the base and amongst the tangled roots swarm thousands 

 of Crustacea and Radiata, while fish of several species dart 

 amongst the leaves and branches. But it is on the sunken 

 rocks of the outer coast that this genus chiefly prevails, and 

 from thence thousands of these trees are flung ashore by the 

 waves, and with the Macrocystis and D' Urvillcea, form along 

 the beach continued masses of vegetable rejectamenta, miles 

 in extent, some yards broad, and three feet in depth ; the upper 

 edge of this belt of putrifying matter is well in shore, whilst 

 the outer or seaward edge dips into the water, and receives the 

 accumulating wreck from the submarine forest, throughout its 

 own length. Amongst these masses the best Algse of the 

 Falklands are found, though, if the weather be mild, the stench 

 which resembles putrid cabbage is so strong as to be almost 

 insufferable. The ignorant observer at once takes the trunks 

 of Lessonia thus washed up for pieces of driftwood, and on 

 one occasion no persuasion could prevent the captain of a 

 brig from employing his boat and boat's crew, during two 

 biting cold days, in collecting this incombustible wood for 

 fuel" 



206. The resemblance, however, to woody stems is not 

 entirely confined to the external aspect, because a cross section 

 exhibits rings of growth. A figure has already been given of 

 this structure at p. 56, but the mode of increase is not at 

 present certain. It is remarkable that the stem of Lami'jiaria, 

 which periodically casts its frond, and that of Lessonia, in 

 which the frond seems to increase by longitudinal division, 



