British ODarine Algae. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Visitors to the seaside frequently complain of the want of amusement 
and occupation there. I will endeavour to suggest a source which will 
supply at once amusement, occupation, and instruction. Most people are 
fond of flowers, and many there are who know something about them ; but 
how few among them know anything about seaweeds! The object of this 
book is to call attention to the beauties of marine vegetation, and to help, 
by means of accurate and characteristic illustrations, to the recognition 
and appreciation of the many lovely plants which either in thoughtlessness 
or ignorance people cast aside or tread under foot as they wander on the 
sea shore. 
The vegetable kingdom is classed under two grand sub-divisions, 
described by botanists under the terms Phanerogamia, or flowering plants, 
and Cryptogamia, or flowerless plants. In flowering plants are recognised, 
in all periods of life beyond the earliest, two distinct kinds of the product 
of the growth ; these are an axis or stem, and leaves and flowers, the latter 
being succeeded by the perfect development of special organs containing 
the fruit or seed of the plant. In seaweeds there is no corresponding 
arrangement of seed-producing organs, the axis or stem only is represented, 
but never clothed with leaves and floral organs capable of producing seed 
vessels. The stem assumes a remarkable variety of forms, in some 
instances simulating those of perfect leaves, but never presenting that 
_ distinct separation into leaf and stem, such as we observe in the charac- 
teristic structure of flowering plants. The leaf-like and branching expan- 
sions of seaweeds perform at once the office of stem, root, and leaf, and 
represent what in the cryptogamic division of plants is termed ‘“‘ frond.’’ 
Seaweeds, like all other plants which belong to this great sub-class, are 
reproduced by a simple kind of seed called spore, in which (so scientific 
‘botanists say) no embryo or rudimentary plant exists at the period when it 
is thrown off by the parent plant. “Thus the term “ spore”’ is now applied 
to the reproductive bodies of all flowerless plants, while that of “‘ seed”’ 
specially belongs to the ovules of all the Phanerogamia, or flowering 
plants. The spores of seaweeds are produced in variously-formed capsules, 
which in some are borne on the branches, and in others are immersed in 
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