MELANOSPERME 4. 49 
strings of fruit vessels are borne, fall away, leaving the stem and branches 
of the plant rigid and bare. ‘This beautiful plant is a summer annual, 
and is by no means common, though widely dispersed. Fig. 54 is from a 
very fine specimen taken by me at Hastings several years ago. 
The second family of this order, Sporochnacee, contains two British species 
only. The spores of these plants are produced in knob-like receptacles 
composed of whorled filaments, appressed or closely compacted together. 
This small group of plants takes its name from the genus Sporochnus, 
which signifies wool and seed, because tufts of woolly fibres are connected 
with the organs of fructifi- 
eation. In Sporochnus 
pedunculatus (Fig. 55), 
these tufted fibres form a 
crest to the elliptical spore- 
vessels which spring from 
each side of the stem and 
branches, to which they 
are attached by a peduncle 
or stalk, as seen at |b, 
Fig. 53. ‘“ Few of our 
marine algx,’ remarks 
Professor Harvey, “ are 
more attractive to the eye 
of a botanist than this 
beautiful plant, when it is 
seen waving its graceful 
branches in the water, and 
its pear-shaped seed-vessels 
are terminated by their 
tufts of olive-green fila- 
ments.’ A portion of this 
Species is represented at 
Fig. 55. This plant is 
dredged in Plymouth 
Sound, where it grows 
abundantly and in _ the 
greatest perfection. Its 
length is from Gin. to Ift. Fig. 54. Arthrucladia villosa. 
or more. The main stem is filiform or string-like, and is scarcely any 
thicker than the long slender branches which are thrown out on each side, 
getting gradually shorter as they approach the tip of the stem, thus 
giving to the plant an extremely graceful and elegant outline. This species 
is by no means common, but in some seasons it is cast ashore a Brighton 
rather plentifully, though of small size; it is also met with protty gene- 
rally every spring in the Channel Islands. As this plant is a summer 
annual, the spores ripen rather early in the season, and as the pre ty tufts 
F 
