50 CARL SKOTTSBERG, MARTNE ALG^ 1. PH^OPHYCE^. 



cystis with leaves narrower than any I have seen before. Unfortunately it was com- 

 pletely impossible to obtain a specimen, for all our attention was fixed on the 

 dangerous passage and all hands busy saving the boat. 



According to my opinion, which is based on some experience, the plants from 

 these two localities represent the current-form of Macrocystis, and I believe that the 

 special characters of this form are due to direct action of the extreme external 



factors. 



Distribution: N. Pacif. Ocean down to the coast of California; Galåpagos Isl. 

 to Cape Horn; circump.-subant. Other localities probably refer to drifted specimens. 



Fncales. 



Ascoseiracese. 



This order was established b}^ the writer in Ant. Meeresalg. I. Svedelius 

 (Nachtrag zu Engler und Prantl, Die natiirl. Pflanzenfam. 1: 2 p. 184) does not 

 admit the order, remarking that it cannot be better characterized than the genus. 

 This is of course true, but we know sufficient of Ascoseira to conclude that it cannot 

 be placed in any of the other orders of brown algae. 



Ascoseira Skottsb. 



A. mirabilis Skottsb. Ant. Meeresalg. I p. 149. 



Syn. Lessonia fuscescens var. linearis Reinsch Meeresalg. Siidg. p. 416. Urvillcea 

 spec. ? Skottsb. Veget. Antarct. Sea p. 254, Ant. Meeresalg. I. p. 142; Lessonia dubia 

 Gain, Flore algol. p. 48. 



South Georgia: Cumberland Bay, Moraine Fiord (18. 4. 09); Bay of Isles 

 (25. 4. 09). Drifted specimens only, but some quite intact and one fixed to a pebble. 



I am convinced that Reinsch's var. linearis of Lessonia fuscescens is my Asco- 

 seira, and evidently L. dubia Gain is the same, what is shown by his description 

 and illustrations. On the other hand my so-called Urvilloea (incorrectly for Durvillea) 

 from Graham Land is nothing but Ascoseira. It is curious that this did not occur 

 to me until I became acquainted with Gain's Lessonia; my notes from 1902 clearly 

 describe the fronds as covered with conceptacles just as in Durvillea. All the material 

 was löst in the ship-wreck. I found the plant growing on rocks in the upper sub- 

 litoral region, hanging down in the water and swinging to and fro with the surf. The 

 loss of this material is greatly to be regretted as it was collected in the beginning 

 of January, while all the specimens from South Georgia were gathered in April. 

 Thus it is quite possible that other stages in the development of the conceptacles 

 would have been found in the antarctic material. 



Unfortunately, no younger specimens than the large sterile ones described by 

 Gain are known. The stipe is dichotomous but hardly so regularly divided as in 

 Lessonia. We do not know if the divisions take place in the same manner; by its 

 lighter colour and its anatomical structure, the transitional zone between stipes and 



