Directions for preserving Sea Plants. 157 



being pale, and in others a rich reddish-purple ; sometimes a bright 

 orange, which latter, I believe, is the effect of incipient decay. 1 

 often observed it at Cairnlough, when floating in still water, to have 

 an appearance as if it were bordered with white, and on closer in- 

 spection I found that this proceeded from the margin having attached 

 to it in its whole extent minute air biibbles, which in certain lights 

 looked exactly like a regular row of seed-pearl. On disturbing the 

 plant, these bubbles were not very easily dislodged. They appeared 

 equally in shade as in sunshine. 



Polysiphonia violacea. — Abundant at Cairnlough Bay, in May, and 

 in fruit in June. When put in fresh water, it almost immediately 

 gives out a cloud of colouring matter, of the tint of Roman ochre, 

 and becomes much darker in colour than before. When it has lain 

 for a night in a wet state on the edge of a dish, I have found it on 

 the following day to be almost black. When rolled in a large bunch 

 on the shore by the action of the waves, its long fasciculated 

 branches become so ravelled, that it is almost impossible to get them 

 disengaged from each other, and from this cause I lost some fine 

 specimens, as I found the task of unravelling them too trying for 

 any ordinary degree of human patience. It adheres firmly to paper. 



Dasya coccinea. — Common. When quite fresh, it is of a garnet-red 

 colour, and, like most others of that tint, it becomes of a beautiful 

 rose pink, when macerated in fresh water. 



Ceramium rubrum — I found a number of specimens of this very 

 common plant, with distinct capsules imbedded in the substance of 

 the filaments. The central parts of these were so opaque, that I 

 could not with the microscope distinguish separate seeds, but each 

 globular mass was surrounded by a hyaline ring, and in some speci- 

 mens, where, from decay, the filament had become white, the glo- 

 bules retained the same intensity of colour as in other parts ; shew- 

 ing that their vital properties had protected them from the decaying 

 process to which the part containing them had yielded. 



I have an interesting specimen of Delesseria sinnosa, which is 

 bleached almost as white as the paper on which it lies ; but the cili- 

 ary processes upon its margin, containing the seeds, are of the usual 

 colour and form, a beautiful contrast with the rest. It seems to me 

 indeed not improbable that cases might occur where attention to cir- 

 cumstances of this kind might throw some light on the reproductive 

 parts of some of these tribes. 



Griffiihsia setacea. — Common on the Antrim coast. It was chief- 

 ly in reference to this species that I threw out a caution with regard 



