Ser. Melanosperme*. Fam. Fucea. 



Plate CCCXLIII. 



SARGASSUM VULGARE, Ag. 



Gen. Char. Frond famished with distinct, stalked, nerved leaves, and 

 simple, axillary, stalked air-vessels. Receptacles small, linear, tuber- 

 culated, mostly in axillary clusters, cellular, pierced by numerous 

 pores, which communicate with immersed, spherical concepitacles, 

 containing parietal spores and tufted antheridia. Sargassum 

 (Rump/i.), — a word formed from the Spanish sargazo, the name 

 given by navigators to floating Sea-weed. 



Sargassum vulgare ; stem filiform, smooth, alternately branched ; leaves 

 linear-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate (very variable in breadth), 

 serrated, strongly ribbed, copiously glandular ; air-vessels on com- 

 pressed stalks about their own length, spherical, pointless; recep- 

 tacles axillary, dichotomous, tuberculose, unarmed. 



Sargassum vulgare, Ag. Sp. Alg. vol. i. p. 3. Ag. Syst. p. 293. Grev. Ahj. 

 Brit. p. 2. t. 2. Hook. Br. Fl. vol. ii. p. 264. Harv. Man. ed. 1. p. 17. 

 ed. 2. p. 15. J. Ag. Sp. Alg.p.MZ. 



Fucus natans (in part), Turn. Hist. t. 46. Syn. p. 48. Sm. Eng. Bot. 

 t. 2114. 



Hab. Cast ashore, drifted by oceanic currents from warmer latitudes. 

 Cast on the shores of the Orkney Isles, Dr. P. Neill. (Near Fal- 

 mouth ? Hudson) 



Geogr. Distr. Atlantic Ocean, abundant on tropical and subtropical coasts. 

 Shores of North America, as far north as Long Island Sound. Coasts of 

 Spain and Portugal. 



Descr. Root a conical disc. Fronds tufted, from one to three feet in length, 

 having a leading, mostly undivided, stem set throughout with alternate, 

 spreading branches, the lowest of which arc longest. Stem and branches 

 narrow, filiform or subcompressed, smooth (destitute of rough points), 

 somewhat flexuous. Leaves coriaceous, an inch or two in length, from a 

 quarter to half an inch in breadth, oblong or linear-lanceolate, sharply 

 serrated, the surface dotted over with muciferous pores or glands, strongly 

 nerved. Air-vessels spherical, about as large as a pea, pointless, borne on 

 compressed stalks about as long as themselves, and springing from the 

 lower part of the petiole of the leaves. Receptacles in dichotomous cymoid 

 tufts, springing with the air-vessels from the petioles, cylindrical, tubercu- 

 latetl, usually much shorter than the subtending leaf, sometimes elongated 

 and filiform, and many times forked. Colour a foxy olive. Substance 

 opake and tough. 



One of the stray waifs of tropical climes, which are occa- 



