Descr. Root, a flattened disc. Fronds tufted, many springing from the same 
base, from one to ten or twelve inches in height, rising with a subcylindrical, 
slender stem, which soon becomes flattened, and at an inch or more from 
the root widens into the cuneate base of a fan-shaped, many parted frond. 
The segments vary much in width, and in the amount of their furcation. 
Sometimes they are not more than a line wide, nearly perfectly linear, fiat, 
and very many times dichotomous; sometimes they are from one to four 
inches in breadth, very much curled, and broadly cuneate, overlapping each 
other. Sometimes the margin is quite entire and even; in other specimens 
it is lobed, or proliferous, or fringed with leafy processes. The apices are 
more or less truncate, emarginate or bifid; and the axils, especially of the 
broad varieties, are very blunt. The colour is extremely variable, ranging 
from a yellowish green to a livid purple, or a purplish-brown. Fructification ; 
tetraspores collected in dense sori, contained in oval or oblong cavities irre- 
gularly scattered through the lamina of the frond, and usually concave on 
one side. Substance cartilaginous, becoming soft, and finally dissolving into 
a gelatine in fresh water. 
So variable is the present species in appearance, under different 
circumstances, that it is quite impossible to enumerate the many 
forms it puts on, and were we to attempt to figure even the prin- 
cipal varieties, the figures would fill many plates. Turner has 
ten varieties ; and Lamouroux figures thirty-five. I prefer repre- 
senting two of the most opposite forms. 
My upper figure shows the state of the plant when growing 
near low water mark, in situations exposed to the full dash of the 
open sea. The lower is from an estuary where a fresh water 
stream mixes with the sea, and brings down much mud and sand. 
In this situation the Chondrus attains even a greater size, and is 
frequently very much lobed and fringed. 
This plant is the Carrigeen or Irish moss of the shops, and is 
used in place of isinglass in the preparation of blanc-manges, and 
jellies, the frond boiling down to a clear, tasteless gelatme. A 
few years ago it was a fashionable remedy in consumptive cases, 
and the collection and preparation of it for market afforded a 
small revenue to the industrious peasantry of the West Coast of 
Ireland, where it first came into use. The price at one time 
was as high as 2s. 6d. per lb., but the fashion has gone out, and 
the plant almost ceased to be collected. 
Fig, 1. CHoNDRUS CRISPUS, a narrow variety. 2. The same, a broad variety: 
—natural size. 3. Transverse section of the frond. 4. Longitudinal sec- 
tion :—both magnified. 5. Specimen producing sori:—wnatural size. 6. 
Transverse section of the frond, and of two sori. 7. Tetraspores from the 
sorus :—both magnified. 
