RHODOSPERMEA. 155 
potatoes, sometimes being boiled, but in many places eaten raw, just as it 
is gathered fresh from the sea. Cattle and sheep are especially fond of 
it, and the latter always eat it with avidity whenever they find their way 
to the rocks where it grows, or is castashore. The genus Rhodymenia, 
as formerly described by Dr. Harvey, contained many beautiful species 
which Professor Agardh has recently transferred to other genera, and now 
it is represented in Britain by two species only. Maugeria sanguinea 
having been already described, I direct the reader’s attention to Fig. 139, 
which represents the characteristic deep-water form of Rhodymenia 
palmata. There are several varieties of this common plant found on our 
shores ; some are attached to rocks, or parasitical on the shore Fuci and 
the stems of the Laminarie. In the Mediterranean it has long been 
extensively used in ragot#/s and many other simple dishes, and Dr. Harvey 
described it as being the chief ingredient in a soup recommended to the 
Irish peasantry by the celebrated Soyer. The fronds of this species are 
from 3in. to 2ft. long, very irregularly divided, the typical form being more 
or less palmate or hand-shaped, the margins of all the divisions being 
entire, the bases of the frondlets or branches always tapered, and the tips 
invariably obtuse or rounded. The colour varies from a dull brown-red to 
a deep red, turning to a pale yellow, or sometimes a greenish tint in decay. 
Tetraspores are scattered in cloudy patches over the whole frond. 
Although this species sports in such a variety of forms, there are four 
recognised varieties, which may be described as follows :—Variety Mar- 
ginifera, the frond of which is fringed all along its margin with a series 
of leaflets of various lengths ; var. Simplex, in which the frond is a long 
wedge-shaped, undivided leaf; var. Sarniensis, the frond being laciniated 
Fig. 141. Rhodymenia palmetta. 
or cleft into a tuft of long, narrow segments; and var. Sobolifera, the 
most distinct and characteristic variety of the species, very well repre- 
sented at Fig. 140. The frond arises from a short stem, and soon expands 
upwards into irregularly cleft wedge-shaped branches, laciniated and very 
much jagged at the margins and tips. This particular form [ have in- 
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