THE MARINE BOTANIST. 21 



mpidly attains its full size, matures its fruit, and 

 falls off at the end of the season. Winter and 

 Spring'. Common on rocky shores. The recep- 

 tacles are from two to ten feet long, and of a dark 

 olive-gTeen colour. 



SPOROCHNACEiE.— SPOROCHNUS TRIBE. 



Inarticulate sea -weeds, much branched, with 

 slender filiform or flattened branches, which are 

 mostly furnished at some period of their growth 

 with deciduous conferva -like tufts of lig'ht g-reen 

 filaments. Fructification spores attached to ex- 

 ternal jointed filaments, which are either free or 

 compacted together into knob-like masses. 



The species of this tribe while growing are of a 

 bright olive colour, but on exposure to the air, 

 they soon become flaccid, and rapidly change to 

 a verdigris green hue, when they manifest the 

 peculiar property of quickly decomposing other 

 dehcate algse with which they may come in 



