BHODOXJ C9 



This resembles V. urceolata in miniature, hut has the 

 Bofl substance of P. fibrata, and is a much more Blender 

 plant. 



109. fibrata (The fibred Polysiphonia) j sterna setaceous below, 

 much attenuated upwards, flaccid, gelatinous, simple or al- 

 ternately branched, bearing at greater or Less distances, di- 

 chotomously divided, more or Less pencilled ramuli, whose 

 tips are flbrilliferous ; axils patent; articulations bistriate, 

 variable in Length, those in the principal branches four to 

 m\ times longer than broad ; Biphonfi four, surrounding a 

 minute central cavity; capsules ovate, usually pedunculate, 



■r. in Hook. Br.Fl. o. 2. p. 329. (Atlas, PL XXVI. 



Fig. 113.) 

 Hutchmsia allochroa, var., Ag. Conferva fibrata, Dilho. 

 Hah. Atlantic shores of Britain. On rocks, mussel-shells, etc.j 



near low-water mark, either in tide-pools or exposed places. 



Annual. Summer and autumn. Frequent on the liritisli 



coasts. 

 This Bpecies is pretty generally dispersed on the British 

 3, and must be regarded as one of our commonest 

 species of PoU/sipkonia* The dichotomons fibres which 

 terminate the brandies of our P. fibrata. and which have 

 given it its name, are by no means peculiar to it ; but are 

 equally characteristic of the young state of most, if not all, 

 the species of the genus. On some they are found more 

 abundantly and more fully developed than on others, and 

 in the present plant this is remarkably the case. It is 

 to these fibres the antheridia are attached, which on P. 

 fibrata are frequently in great abundance, crowning every 

 branchlel with a tuft of golden pods. 



110. spinulosa [The finelu-spined Polysiphonia) : ''dark redj 

 branches divaricate, Bomewhat rigid, the ramuli short, 

 Btraight, subulate, divaricate; articulation- about equal in 

 length and breadth, three-tubed ; tubercle-" (young cerami- 

 dia) "globose, sessile, excessively minute." Orev. Scot, Crypt. 

 PL t. 90. (Atlas, PL XXVL*Fig. ill,) 



Hob. Appro (probably in tide-pool-). \ 



One of our rarest Bpecies, only found by Captain Car- 

 michael, and by him only once, and now figured from a 

 specimen preserved in the Hookerian Herbarium. The 

 resemblance between P, spinulosa and our P. CarmichaeU 

 iana is great, but P. spinulosa is a much smaller and more 

 delicate plant, and its -tems are articulated throughout. 

 The " tubercles " are evidently young ceramidia ; the Bpe- 



