707 



II. 

 ALGiE-REGIONS AND ALG.E- FORMATIONS ON THE COASTS 



OF THE F.EROES. 



In his well-known paper on the alga? -flora of the Murniann 

 Sea (44, p. 57) Kj ell man divides the flora: »in drei Gebiele und 

 zwar in das litorale, sublitorale und elitorale«. By littoral »Gel)iet« 

 he means the part of the bottom of the sea which is left dry by 

 the ebb of the spring tide, that is, from the highest tide mark to 

 the lowest ebb mark. The sublittoral »Gebiet« extends from di- 

 rectly below^ the littoral »Gebiet« down to a depth of 20 fathoms, 

 and finally the elittoral »Gebiet« consists of the bottom lying below^ 

 yet overgrown by algse. In a later paper (45) on the algae -flora of 

 the Skagerak, Kj ell man introduces the name » region « instead of 

 »Gebiet«. He asserts that the limit between the two first named 

 regions is distinct and natural. The vegetation of the littoral region 

 is essentially difterent from that of the sublittoral region, evidently 

 a natural consequence of the very diflerent local circumstances pre- 

 vailing in each of these two regions. The limit between the sub- 

 littoral and the elittoral regions is, however, less distinct. 



With more or less variation of the limits of these regions, later 

 authors have used this division by Kjellman as a basis for their 

 division of the algae -vegetation of other tracts of the sea. I shall 

 do the same, with some alterations. 



Smaller types of vegetation belonging to the algae -regions are 

 named »Algenformationen« by Kjellman (45, p. 10); his definition 

 is as follows: »Unter einer Algenformation sollte folglich ein Ab- 

 schitt der ganzen Algenvegetation verstanden werden , der durch 

 ein eigenthiimliches Vegetations-Geprage ausgezeichnet ist. Im All- 

 gemeinen erhalten diese Abschnitte dadurch dieses Gepriige, dass 

 eine oder einige Algenarten die Hauptmasse ihrer Bestandtheile 

 ausmachen.« 



I propose the name of association for these types of vegeta- 

 tion. These associations are often united in a natural way in larger 

 communities, where they live together under the same or very si- 

 milar biological and ecological conditions. I propose the name of 

 formation for these more comprehensive groups. If any further 

 subdivision is particularly wanted, we may use the word facies, 



