RHODOSPERME. 207 
at the tips of these little branchlets, and, under the microscope, appear 
like little wicker baskets filled with crimson fruit. One of these is re- 
presented at b, highly magnified. This species (like all the others of this 
group) will not bear immersion in fresh water for an instant, for 
although rigid and crisp in its native element, fresh water has the 
power of causing the fronds to discharge their beautiful carmine colour, 
leaving nothing but empty cells or unsightly filaments tinged with yellow 
and green. G. secundiflora, so named from its peculiar system of 
branching, the ramuli or secondary branches being generally produced 
on one side only of the stems. This species has somewhat the appearance 
of the preceding, but its filaments are not so attenuated, and are blunt at 
the tips. The tufts are from 3in. to 6in. high. This is one of the rarest 
of our red seaweeds; it is tolerably abundant in the Channel Islands, but 
My 
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Fic. 192. (a) Branch of Griffithsia setacea; (b) involucre, magnified. 
has not been found, so far as I know, in any other situation on the 
British shores, besides the sheltered bay at Bovisand, near Plymouth, 
where it was discovered by the Rev. Mr. Hore in 1846. It is reasonable 
to suppose that this beautiful Giiffithsia is propagated by fruit, though 
all the specimens that I took at Bovisand were destitute of even the 
appearance of fructification; this leads me to conjecture that the plant 
produces its fruit during the month of December or January, during 
which periods its place of growth is altogether inaccessible, for even 
during the lowest spring tides it is submerged to a depth of 4ft. or 
more, and no boat could possibly approach the rocky nook where it 
grows except when the water was smooth or free from swell, which 
is very rarely the case during the winter months. The only fruited speci- 
