THE HALE-TIDE POOL. 51 



in various pools as to puzzle the collector exceedingly. 

 "When I first found the charming little rosy red Geli- 

 dium, with a flat frond edged all round with pinna, I 

 scarcely believed that I had the same plant as the 

 filiform greenish-red Gelidium Flexuosus, with its 

 forked branchlets and recurved pinnce. 



Generic cliaracter. — Proud rather horny, flat, 

 branched ; branches linear, pinnate, or bi-pinnate. 



Fructification. — Two kinds on distinct individuals. 

 Capsules containing spores immersed in the extremi- 

 ties of the ramuli, or tetraspores simply imbedded in 

 the club-shaped branchlets. 



The size varies from one inch to six inches, and the 

 plant hides under other seaweed, in some of its many 

 forms, on all our coasts. Colour, red and reddish- 

 green. 



POLYSIPHOMA. 



(Name from the Greek, signifying "many siphons.") 



The generic cliaracter of all the Polysiplioniadce is 

 given with the commonest species, Folysiplwnia Fasti- 

 giata, in the first-tide pools ; but now as we advance 

 towards the deep sea many beautiful varieties may be 

 collected, and none are more worthy than 



Polysipho;nta. Violacea. — A splendid violet sea- 

 weed, from six to ten inches long, with a principal 

 stem and a multitude of smaller branches, like a tree ; 

 if* in fruit, dotted like a well-laden plum tree, with 

 cera?nidia, or urn-shaped cells, or tetraspores in bead- 



d 2 • 



