MARINE BOTANY. 73 



usually unadorned ; the larger branches alone remain, and 

 these, in their loneliness and rigidity, with broken points 

 and spine-like terminations, have little semblance to the 

 plant of summer. But with the coming back of spring, 

 attended by her mild sea-dove, and birds from far-oif 

 lands, the elongated is seen reclothed with bright-red tufts 

 — fresh, vigorous, and beautiful, and expanding on its 

 pebbly bed, above which the waters plash and sparkle, 

 and give additional brilliancy to the plant that glows 

 beneath. 



The Griffith polysiphonia, of which the specific name 

 commemorates its first discovery by Mrs. Griffith at Torquay, 

 subsequently in the isle of Portland, is often found on the 

 south coasts of England, growing upon the smaller Algae 

 between tide-mark. The geographic distribution of this 

 plant has hitherto eluded the researches of botanists, al- 

 though its distinctiveness from others of the name consists 

 in a distinctly-pointed stem, with straight tubes, as also by 

 a full red hue, inclining to brown when dry. Far, however, 

 as the researches of botanists extend, the Griffith has been 

 traced along the Atlantic shores of North America, of France 

 and Spain, though nowhere more abundant than in the 

 Mediterranean, and especially at Yenice, where it recalls to 

 mind the thought of a modern traveller, when, standing beside 

 the pyramids of Egypt, he looked upon the grasses which 

 grew around, verdant as when the proud dynasty of the 

 Pharaohs filled the throne of that country, and contrasted the 

 permanency of Nature with the mutability of earthly great- 

 ness. And thus it is as regards that ancient city, beneath 

 the shadows of whose crumbling palaces grows unheeded the 

 elegant Griffithsiana. 



"In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more, 

 And silent rows the songless gondolier ; 

 Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 

 And music meets not always now the ear. % 

 Those days are gone— but beauty still is here. 



