MABTNE BOTANY. 81 



and most unlike its general haunts, yet showing that the 

 species was struggling hard to extend its place of growth. 



" It seems as if these wondrous plants had thought, 

 And power to choose out places for their growth : 

 As if they sought to bless the homeliest haunts, 

 And clothe the rock with beauty; bidding men, 

 Passing perchance in haste, to pause, and think 

 Of Him who made them, and look scorn no longer 

 On lowlier ones, whom the Most High hath placed 

 In fitting stations." 



The trivial name of Linum aptly expresses the peculiar 

 character of this curious plant. Its pale or dark-green 

 floating filaments vary from a few inches to several feet in 

 length, and are disposed in strata, lying one above the other. 

 Lowly is its habitat, whether in salt-water ditches on our 

 coasts, or among rocks and huge stones along the shores of 

 Europe ; and yet, how much of beauty is discovered in this 

 humble weed ! how curiously jointed is each filament with 

 dense articulations, containing fluid that ministers, without 

 doubt, to the exigencies of the parent plant ! 



A peculiarly pale, or rather a fine yellow-green colour, 

 and a bushy mode of growth, distinguish the soft and mem- 

 branaceous C. Icetivirens, which is found on rocks and stones 

 throughout the Atlantic shores of Europe and Xorth America, 

 but uniformly in the open sea, and beyond the influence of 

 fresh water. The C. glome rat a, on the contrary, is seen in 

 rills and rivers remote from the sea, and often in such as 

 have their source in mountainous regions. 



Assigned, with their brethren, to embellish the beautiful 

 solitudes of nature, on sea-rocks around which the breakers 

 lift their crests of broken foam ; to call forth thoughts of 

 love and thankfulness in those who visit the wild sea-shore, 

 when looking over its might of waters, and contrasting them 

 with the minuteness or the beauty of marine productions, 

 different members of the family of Cladophora are found in 

 • almost every part of the known world, with the exception 



