126 COMMON SEAWEEDS. 



the summer and autumn : a most lovely little plant. 

 Discovered by Miss White and Miss Turner on the 

 shores of Jersey. 



EETOPSIS PLUMOSA. 



This pretty green feathery seaweed is a great prize, 

 so rich and glossy is the deep green, and so elegant the 

 sprays, floated out upon the paper to which it adheres. 



Only in deep shadowy pools, or parasitic on Lami- 

 naria Saccliarina do we find it. The best way of gather- 

 ing this and many others is to go in a boat at lowest 

 tide and skirt the rocks with hand-net, or long pole 

 having a hook at the end, and so looking down into 

 the calm water, many lovely seaweeds, otherwise un- 

 attainable, may be gathered, especially on our western 

 coast. 



PTILOTA PLUMOSA. 



" Full many a gem of purest ray serene 



The dark unf athomed caves of ocean bear , 

 Eull many a flower is born to blush unseen, 

 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 



This lovely little plant is rightly named Ptilota, 

 from a Greek word signifying "pinnated," from its 

 innumerable small branches or pinnce, with which the 

 stem is closely branched right and left, and these 

 again cut into exceedingly fine divisions called pinnules. 

 At the top of the latter we find the fructification. 



It consists of two or three minute capsules called 



