Ser. Melanospermejs. Fam. Fucea. 



Plate CIX. 



SARGASSUM BACCIFERUM, A g . 



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

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

 lated, mostly in axillary clusters, cellular, pierced by numerous pores, 

 which communicate with immersed, spherical conceptacles containing 

 parietal spores and tufted antheridia. Sargassum (Humph.) — a word 

 formed from the Spanish sargazo, the name applied to the floating 

 sea-weed observed by navigators. 



Sargassum bacciferum ; stem cylindrical, slender, much branched, flexuous ; 

 leaves linear, serrated, mostly without muciferous pores ; air-vessels 

 abundant, spherical, on cylindrical stalks, commonly mucronate. 



Sargassum bacciferum, Ag. Sp. Alg. vol. i. p. 6. Ag. Sgst. p. 294. Sproig. 

 Syst. Veg. vol. iv. p. 320. Grev. Alg. Brit. p. 3. Hook. Br. II. vol. ii. 

 p. 264. Harv. Man. p. 17. 



Fucus bacciferum, Turn. Hist. t. 47. Sm. E. Bot. t. 1967. 



Fucus natans, Esper, Ic. vol. i. p. 49. t. 23. 



Fucus sargasso, Gmel. Hist. luc. p. 92. 



Hab. Occasionally cast on the British coasts, but not a native of our 



waters. Orkney Islands, Br. P. Neill. Shore of Castle Eden Dean, 



Durham, Mr. W. Backhouse. 



Geogr. Distr. Tropical and sub-tropical ocean, throughout both hemispheres, 

 always found floating on the surface of the sea. 



Descr. Ironds a foot or more in length. Stems growing in all directions from 

 a central point, forming globular, floating tufts, cylindrical, filiform, slender, 

 flexuous or angularly bent, twice or thrice divided ; branches long, simple, 

 alternate, flexuous, pinnated with alternate leaves. Leaves two to three 

 inches long, one to two lines wide, linear-lanceolate, tapering to cither ex- 

 tremity, destitute of muciferous pores, serrato-dentate, with irregularly 

 distant divaricating sharp teeth, furnished with a strong, percurrent midrib. 

 Vesicles spherical, w r ith or without a mucro, borne on short, cylindrical 

 stalks in the axils of the leaves, one or more in each axil. Iructijication 

 unknown. Colour, when growing, a pale transparent greenish olive; when 

 dry, dark brown or black. Substance between cartilaginous and coriaceous, 

 brittle when recent. 



This plant, the well-known Sargasso or gulf-weed, has clearly 

 no claims to be admitted to the British Flora, but having already 

 been introduced into other works, 1 figure it. though obliged to 

 make my drawing, from a foreign specimen. 



The branch shown m the figure is par! of a specimen picked 



