MARINE BOTANY 77 



plies, to marine rocks, where it resembles fragments of 

 bright green velvet ; the amphibium is found on turf banks, 

 at extreme high-water mark; the bursa, of which the 

 globular frond forms a spongy and hollow ball, spreads over 

 rocks in its favourite localities — the coast of Sussex, with 

 those of Cornwall, Torquay, and Belfast ; while the cylin- 

 drical and forked tomentosum dwells apart on rocks, and in 

 rock-pools near high-water mark. 



Such also is the habitat of the feathery bryopsis, one of the 

 most attractive in this sea-green family. The colour is 

 rich and glossy, the form symmetrical, and the whole plant 

 resembles the feathers of a green parrot. And although less 

 beautiful, being slenderer, more branchy, and of a yellower 

 green, the J3. hypnoides looks well in its watery location of 

 some rock-pool, or when adhering, beyond tide-mark, to a 

 widely-spreading and olive-brown sea-belt, the haunt of 

 beautiful molluscs, that are seen gliding among them ; or 

 the fixed habitation of numerous zoophytes, among which 

 the Flustra membranacea often covers it with fine, silvery, 

 lace-like webs, and the Lipralia hyalina and annulata richly 

 dot its leathery substance. 



" Huge ocean shows within his yellow strand 

 A habitation marvellously plann'd 

 For life to occupy." 



Look narrowly into one of those clear rock-pools, near 

 low- water mark, which are left by the receding of the tide, 

 over which a steep mural cliff throws its shadow. Such is 

 the frequent habitat of the rich, glossy, full-green Clado- 

 phora falcata, with its curled branches, and delicate ramula 

 bending on one side. This plant, as yet without any as- 

 signed geographic distribution, and known principally in 

 the west of Ireland, where it affects the rocks outside Dingle 

 Harbour, is singularly beautiful, both in form and hue, and 

 affords a pleasing object for the microscope. 



The C, Jlutchimice, found also on the rocky bottoms of 



