Ser. Melanosperme^e. Fam. Sporochnoidea. 



Plate XIV. 



CARPOMITRA CABRERA, Kiitz. 



Gen. Char. Frond linear, dichotomous, flat and mid-ribbed (or filiform), 

 olivaceous. Fructification, mitriform receptacles terminating the 

 branches, composed of horizontal branching filaments whorled round 

 a vertical axis and producing elliptic-oblong seeds. Cakpomitra — 

 from Kapnbs, fruit, and fiirpa, a cap or mitre ; mitre-fruit. 



Carpomitra Cabrera) frond irregularly dichotomous, linear, narrow, flat, 

 mid-ribbed ; branches here and there constricted. 



Carpomitra Cabrerse, Kiitz. P/tyc. Gen. p. 343. 



Sporochnus Cabrera, Ag. Sp.Alg. vol. i. p. 156. Syst. p. 260. Grev. Syn. 



p. xl. Harv. in Mack. Fl. Rib. part 3rd. p. 154. Man. p. 28. Endl. 3rd 



Suppl. p. 28. 

 Fucus Cabrera, Clemente Ess. p. 313. Turn. Hist. Fuc. 1. 140. 



Hab. Extremely rare. Beach at Youghal, 1833, Miss Fall. 



Geogr, Distr. Cadiz, Clemente. South of Ireland. 



Desc. Boot a shapeless tuber. Stents 6-8 inches high, much branched in an 

 irregularly dichotomous manner, flat, more or less distinctly mid-ribbed, 

 coriaceo-membranaceous. Branches erect, with acute axils, distichous, 

 alternate, narrow below, becoming rather broader upwards, here and there 

 constricted, the apices truncate and often discoloured. Colour a light brown. 

 The frond consists of two strata ; the inner composed of large, colourless, 

 polygonal cells, through which the immersed mid-rib runs ; the outer, toge- 

 ther with the mid-rib, of very minute coloured cells in a single layer. Fruit 

 formed upon the thickened apex of the mid-ribs of the branches, mitriform, 

 minutely capitate, having a central, densely cellular, cylindrical axis round 

 which branching, horizontal articulated filaments are whorled. The lower 

 joints of these filaments are slender, the upper beaded, and the terminal 

 joint — which contains minute bodies, probably the remains of spermatozoa — 

 oblately elliptical. Spores pedicellate, linear elliptical, borne toward the 

 base of the whorled filaments. 



The phanerogamous Flora of Ireland includes so many plants, 

 natives of Spain and Portugal, that it ought not to excite sur- 

 prise when a Spanish sea-weed occurs on our coasts. And yet. 

 specimens of C. Cabrera having never been found but once, and 

 then only washed on shore, we may be allowed to entertain the 

 fear that this interesting plant is not truly the growth of our 

 shores, but wafted hither, as extra-European productions some- 

 times arc, by the force of currents. Even should this be so, it is 



