168 BRITISH MARINE ALGA. 
does not always adhere very satisfactorily to paper. There is a variety of 
this plant sometimes met with, called ‘‘ cirrhosa,’”’ the branches of which 
are long and less bushy, the terminal portions being prolonged into littie 
curled processes, somewhat like the tendrils of a creeper, by means of 
which the branehes of this variety are occasionally found attached to other 
plants. 
To those of my readers who have not followed the numerous changes 
which have taken place in the systematic arrangement and nomenclature 
in the science of algology, it will doubtless be matter of surprise to find so 
many familiar plants described in these pages under new and very 
different names. Several of these have been already disposed of, but I 
have yet to speak of many others. About five-and-twenty years ago Dr. 
Harvey, in describing the natural character of the plants included in the 
old genus Rhodymenia, observed, “‘ This is an ill-defined genus, and will 
probably be eventually broken up into several;’’ and most literally have 
his words been verified, for of the various species which originally con- 
stituted this fine group of plants, many have been scattered far and wide, 
and among.those which have been so treated is the splendid alga repre- 
sented by a fruited branch at Fig. 156, formerly Rhodymenia, but now 
Callophyllis laciniata. This handsome species, rather than Rhodymenia 
palmata (Fig. 139), was probably in the mind’s eye of the poet when he wrote 
of its crimson leaves being like “a banner bathed in slaughter;” for 
although he calls it ‘‘ dulse,’’ which is the common name for Rhodymenia 
palmata, the fronds of this species can scarcely be called crimson, while 
those of Callophyllis are always so. The fronds of this species arise from 
a small disc, and are from 3in. to 12in. long. The stem is very short, and the 
fine membranous fronds soon expand into more or less numerously forked 
segments, most of which are rounded or sometimes laciniated at the tips. 
Tubercles are borne in little leafy processes which fringe the margin of 
the segments, as represented in our illustration. Tetraspores are con- 
tained in dark patches along the margins, and I have occasionally found 
specimens with spots of tetraspores thickly scattered over the whole sur- 
face of the frond. This plant is widely distributed. I have taken it in fine 
condition, in fruit as well as in the barren state, in Torbay and around 
Plymouth; and one season, near Tynemouth, on the splendid sands at 
Whitley, the shore was red for upwards of a mile with multitudes of 
specimens of this superb Rhodosperm. It is biennial, and fruits in winter. 
Some specimens do not adhere very well to paper, and are also apt to con- 
tract the surface; when this is the case, the plant should be dried in the 
ordinary manner, and when it has ceased to shrink, the specimen must 
be floated over again and mounted on another piece of paper, when, if 
after drying and pressing once more it fail to adhere, it must be refloated 
in milk, but the blotting papers should be changed once after a quarter of 
an hour’s pressure, and then strong pressure must be applied for a day or 
two, after which the plant will remain permanently fixed to the paper. 
Kallymenia reniformis, Fig. 157, when grown in favourable situations 
