280 THE SEA-WEEDS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 
America; and the few students of our native kinds have 
been rewarded by meeting with several others, identical with 
species which grew on the other side of the Atlantie Ocean, 
such as C. i ycina, rivularis, aerea, refracta, etc. But 
perhaps the most curious of these water silks, as they may 
be termed, credited to the northern lakes and to those lovely 
sheets of fresh-water in Central New York, is the C. glome- 
rata of the earlier writers, but now called Cladophora, on 
account of the peculiar manner in which the joints arrange 
themselves, being either packed together in strata or layers, 
or flexed and curved in long and delicate lines; and another, 
far more curious, of which there are many sorts distributed 
from Sweden in the far north, to Cayenne in South America ; 
found in Cuba, in New Zealand, in the lakes of Germany 
and in the fresh-waters of Great Britain; and worth looking 
after here, is the C. egagopila, its filaments rolled together 
like a compact ball, and when dry, sometimes used for pen- 
wipers. I have looked for it, but always in vain; other del- 
icate and pellucid-jointed water plants sometimes do so, but 
evidently they are only imitations. In the ditches and 
by the sides of shaded paths where the water is stagnant, 
similar Chlorosperms may be seen. Is there any identity and 
do the same alge grow indifferently in fresh and salt water 
alike? The question is worth attention, so let us when we 
retrace our steps examine. Here I have lifted on the end of 
my cane some of these floating, swollen masses; they also 
are fibrous and silken, but see! how different is the green 
coloring particles within the joints! Here are a few in 
which the seeds are so arranged that the joints which are 
only about as long as they are broad, and vary in length, 
are marked by two roundish stars. It is but a rude idea 
produced by the arrangement of the seeds, but as these 
stand side by side in the parallel joints of two of the 
silken filaments of the tangle we have lifted from the ditch, 
and which are joined laterally by a connection or bridge, 
they remind us of the mythological story of Castor and 
