XIV. ALG^. 983 



£actuca [Green Laver;], Porphjra purpurea, Halymenia edulis, &c. The inhabitants of South Chili use as 

 food the large mucilaginous fronds of Urvillea utUis. Porphyra vulgaris, cooked with lemon-juice, 

 forms a sort of condiment [called Laver, much used by persons of a scrofulous habit]; the Chinese make 

 cakes of Porphyra, which they dry, and then soak, to obtain a nutritious jelly. They also prepare from' 

 Gracilaria lichenoides, or Ceylon Moss, an alimentary substance analogous to isinglass. 



The nesta of the Salangane Swallow, a species belonging to the Sonda Islands, the Moluccas, &c., and 

 of which the Chinese make great use [as bird's-nest soup], were long supposed to be made of certain 

 marine Alg<s of the group of Florideee (Gelidium, Gracilaria, Sphcerococcus, &c.) ; but M. Tr^cul has 

 clearly shown that these nests are of animal origin, and that the Salangane constructs them by means of 

 a mucus which flows abundantly from its beak at the pairing season, and which it arranges in thin 

 concentric layers. 



Besides the iodine and soda yielded by marine Algce, the farmers on the coast sometimes use them 

 as cattle-food, besides which they are a valuable manure, enriching the soil with an abundance of 

 organic matter. They are collected at the end of winter, when their fertilization is over, and the annual 

 shoota have ceased growing by the sprouting of the cellular tissue of the stipe or frond. The PhmosparetR 

 are particularly used for improving the soil, with Zostera, which abounds in estuaries. The peasants of 

 Brittany carry thousands of cartloads of Fueu^ and Laminaria to places situated from twelve to fifteen 

 miles from the shore. The stipes of several LaminariecB become horny when dry, and the peasants 

 of the North of Scotland make knife handles of them, as the inhabitants of the Magellanic lands [and 

 sealers and whalers] do with the stipes of Lessonia. [After undergoing a process, these stipes are 

 manufactured in England into whip and knife handles, and especially into bougies, which swell when 

 moistened, and thus distend openings. — Ed.] 



The structure, and especially the mode of reproduction of Cryptogams without archegonia, are as 

 yet so imperfectly known, that it is often doubtful in what class to place certain of them, and to decide 

 whether they belong to Algce, Fungi, or lAchens. It is this imperfect state of Cryptogamic science to 

 which A. L. de Jussieu alluded in his ' Genera,' when, speaking of Fungi, he says : ' Incerta adhucdum 

 Eungorum generatio, licet ab auctoribus descripta.' Amongst the causes which have contributed to obscure 

 this branch of Botany, we must especially allude to the prevalence of the habit indulged in by many 

 authors of creating a special nomenclature without regard to that of their predecessors ; the slightest 

 structural modification is no sooner recognized than a new term is invented for it, so that the same 

 organ has received several names ; and, to add to the complication, the same name has been on several 

 occasions applied to different organs. This redundant glossology, which even Linnseus termed a 

 calamity (' Verbositas prsesente seculo calamitaa scientise ') has always proved an obstacle to the progress of 

 science. Even amongst Phaenogams, it is enough to quote the classification of fruits proposed at the 

 commencement of this century by eminent naturalists, and which is now forgotten. Botany has long 

 needed a reform and a simplification of Cryptogamic glossology, and all sensible people recognize its 

 necessity. L^veillS has already taken the work in hand in his excellent article, entitled, ' Considera- 

 tions Mycologiques, &c.' ; let us hope that some botanical philosopher will relieve Cryptogamy of a 

 nomenclature which encumbers it, and which renders it so difficult to beginners. 



The most remarkable example of this abuse of a term (by applying it to different organs) is shown 

 in the word S'pwe, used in Cryptogams as an equivalent for the seed of Phsenogams. In Ferns, Equise- 

 taceie, Mardliacea, &c., this pretended seed can only be compared with a bulbil, or rather with a flower- 

 bud, which contains the germs of the reproductive organs, but which will only develop and flower after 

 being separated from the mother-plant. This separation of the reproductive organs, by detachment 

 from the mother-plant before fertilization, offers some analogy with the extra-uterine fecundation of 

 Fishes and Batrachians. 



CharcB, in their mode of fecundation and the very complicated structure of their antheridia, approach 

 Phsenogams; the antherozoid penetrates into the sporangium by the orifice of a coroniform organ that 

 fulfils the part of a stigma, and it fecundates a simple amylaceous spore, which really germinates without 

 forming a prothallus, as do the seeds of many Monocotyledons; but this analogy is not carried out in the 

 vegetative organs, the extreme simplicity of which resembles that of Conferva. These latter are repro- 

 duced, without having been fecundated, merely by the concentration of the green matter into spores, 

 which, in spite of their powers of motion, may also be i^egarded as bulbils. 



