34 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Wood's HoU, Mass. ; Atlantic sliore of Europe. Summer. 



A species easily recoguized aud probably common along the New England coast in 

 summer, but rarely found in sufficient quantities to make herbarium specimens. It 

 is usually found in small streaks, so entangled with other Nostochinece and Confcrvce as 

 to be quite inextricable. At times it is found tolerably pure on the old stalks of Sjmr- 

 tina, between tide-marks. Pure specimens may be obtained by allowing specimens 

 in which filaments of this species are entangled to remain overnight in a shallow 

 dish of salt water, when the Microcoleus will have freed itself from other substances 

 and come to the surface. As generally found, the plant looks like an attenuated corn- 

 ucopia, owing to the rupture of the sheath in the middle, allowing the filaments to 

 l)roject. This is shown in Harvey's figure, 1. c, and also in PI. II, Fig. 3, where only 

 half of the i^lant has been drawn. Normally the sheaths are about a quarter of an 

 inch long, about .075'^'^i broad in the middle, and tapering to about .012™'^ at the 

 ends. Color a deep bluish green. The filaments readily escape from their sheath, and 

 might in this condition pass for a species of Oscillaria. 



Microcoleus terrestris, Dcsmaz. {Chthonohlasins rcpens, Kiitz.), and M. versi- 

 color, Thuret, are not infrequently found in muddy places in the interior of New 

 England. 



LY:^rGBYA, Ag. 



(Named in honor of Hans Christian Lynghye, a Danish botanist. ) 



Filaments free, each provided with a distinct sheath, simple, destitute 

 of heterocysts, no proper oscillations. Spores unknown. 



L. MAJUSCULA, Harv. j MermaiWs Hair, ( Conferva majuscula, Dillw. — 

 Ij. crispa, Ag. in part, — L. majuscula, Harv., Phyc. Brit., PL 62 j JSTer. Am. 

 Bor., Part III, p. 110, PI. 47 a.) PL I, Fig. 4 



Filaments long, forming floating tufts, crisped, about .028°^™ to .032°^°^ 

 in diameter, blackish green, sheath prominent, cells 8 to 10 times as 

 broad as long. 



Cape Cod, Mass., to Key West 5 Europe; Pacific Ocean. Common 

 and widely diffused. Summer. 



The largest, most striking, and most common of our marine Lynglyw, easily recog- 

 nized by the length and diameter of its filaments and its color, which is a blackish 

 green. It forms during the later summer months large tufts upon Zostera and various 

 other algse, and is often found floating free in considerable quantities. In the center 

 of the masses the filaments are intricately twisted together, but on the surface they 

 float out from one another, so as to deserve the common name of mermaid's hair. In 

 the older specimens the filaments are very much curled and twisted, forming the L. 

 crispa of some writers. The sheath is always well marked, although, as is the case in 

 all the species, it varies so much in thickness under different circumstances as to render 

 it impossible to give accurate measurements. The heterocysts, '' cellulis interstitiaU- 

 bus sparsis," described by Rabenhorst in this species, Flora Europ. Alg., Part II, 

 p. 142, have, in reality, no existence. 



L. ^STUARii, Liebm. [L. wruginosa, Ag. — L. ferruginea, Ag., in ^er. 

 Am. Bor., Part III, p. 102, PL 47 b; Phyc. Brit, PL 311.) 



Filaments forming a verdigris-green stratum, about .010-18'"'" in diam- 

 eter, sheaths distinct. 



