64 SEA MOSSES. 



Genus.— CHJETOMORPHA* Kutz. 



The plants of this genus may be separated into 

 two groups, the straight and the crooked. The first 

 we shall commonly find growing in their native haunts, 

 standing up straight, stark and rigid. The others we 

 shall find usually floating, or thrown on shore among 

 the sea weed, a twisted, matted, entangled mass of 

 long green threads, thick or slender, and as crooked 

 and kinked as wool. The plants of this genus 

 consist in general, of a single long, bristly, jointed, 

 unbranched, green thread. 



Ch.etomorpha melagonium, Web. & Mohr. 



This species grows in rock pools near low-water 

 and below. From a disk-shaped root, on the rock, 

 it rises up four to twelve inches, solitary, straight, stiff 

 and wirey, of a dark green color, as its name signifies, 

 twice as thick as a bristle, tapering to the base, and 

 blunt at the top. Articulations two or three times 

 longer than broad. Common all along our rocky 

 shores north of Boston, from June to October. 



CHjETOMORPHA iEREA, DlLLW. 



This plant has something the same habit as the 

 last. It grows in the same situations along the whole 



* Chaetomorpha — like a horse's mane. 



