164 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



base, from which radiate the sporiferous filaments, pericarp thick and 

 connected with the placenta by slender filaments. 



A genus containing not far from forty species, none of which really deserve the generic 

 lame, for they are usually coarse and often decidedly cartilaginous. The specific dis- 

 tinctions are principally derived from the branching, "which in the present genus is 

 very variable. Some of the species, as G. lichenoides, are used as food. 



G. multipartita, J. Ag.; Phyc. Brit., PI. 15. 



Fronds purplish red, four to twelve inches long, compressed or sub- 

 membranaceous, deeply cleft vertically in an irregularly dichotomous 

 or palmate manner, divisions linear wedge-shaped, acute; cystocarps 

 large, conical, scattered over the frond. 



Yar. angtjstissima, Harv. 



Fronds narrow, nearly filiform below, compressed above, irregularly 

 dichotomous, the apices frequently pahnately divided. 



On stones and on muddy bottoms below low- water mark. 



Massachusetts Bay, Harvey, and common from Oape Ood southward; 



Europe; California. 



A coarse and variable species, which is generally of a dingy purple color. The 

 limits of the species are difficult to fix. Occasionally one finds with us specimens as 

 broad as the common European form, but on the coast of California, and especially of 

 Florida, one finds forms which look like large Rhodymenice. Most of our specimens 

 are narrower than the type, and the var. angustissima of Harvey, it must be confessed, 

 has more the habit of G. compressa than of G. multipartita. At Orient we have seen 

 what we supposed was G. confervoides, but unfortunately our specimens were mis- 

 placed. 



Suborder RHODOMELE^l. 



Fronds usually filiform and branching, sometimes membranaceous or 

 (in exotic genera) reticulate ; antheridia ovate or lanceolate in outline, 

 formed by the transformation of monosiphonous branchlets, occasionally 

 covering the surface of discoid al branches ; tetraspores generally tripar- 

 tite, borne either in localized portions of the fronds or in specially modi- 

 fied branches (stichidia) ; cystocarps external, with a distinct ovate or 

 urceolate conceptacle or pericarp, spores pyriform, borne on short stalks 

 given off from a basal placenta. 



The largest suborder of the Floridece, and one containing many of the most beauti- 

 ful sea- weeds. The suborder is mainly characterized by the cystocarpic fruit, which 

 is external, and has the spores borne separately on short stalks which arise from a 

 placenta which surrounds the carpogenic cell at the base of the conceptacle. In the 

 Dasyw, however, the filaments which bear the spores branch and fill the larger por- 

 tion of the conceptacle, but we have not thought it advisable to separate them as a 

 suborder. The antheridia, except in the genus Chondriopsis, where they assume a pecu- 

 liar shape, form ovate or siliculose tufts, generally developed from monosiphonous 

 branchlets or rather hairs. The position of the tetraspores varies in the different 

 genera. In some cases the branchlets become broadly ovate and the tetraspores are 



