772 



From even far above the highest water mark down to a deptli 

 of about 15 fatlioms, we may 'often fhid a dense, well developed 

 algal vegetation , which is divided naturally by the tides into two 

 regions: the littoral and the sublittoral. At few places is there, 

 I think, a littoral vegetation so luxuriant as that of the Faeroes. 

 This is certainly due in the first place to the very favourable cli- 

 mate, secondly to the situation in the open sea, where the surf 

 constantly washes on the coast and thus enables the algae to grow 

 far above the highest water mark. Nevertheless the vegetation of 

 exposed coasts hardly ever becomes as luxuriant as the Fucacece- 

 vegetation in more sheltered places. But even this abundant, lit- 

 toral vegetation is far surpassed by the sublittoral vegetation of the 

 Laminariacece which covers a large area of the bottom of the sea 

 with »forests« of almost a man's height, and a vigorous undergrowth 

 of epiphytes. 



As almost everywhere in the cold temperate seas, the brown 

 algae predominate in size as well as in number on the coasts of the 

 Faeroes, both in the sublittoral region with its Laminariacece and 

 other algae sheltered by these, and also in the littoral. As to the 

 latter, this is only the case, however, so far as the Fucacece-xegeia- 

 tion of sheltered coasts is concerned, on exposed coasts the vege- 

 tation becomes more varied, both red, brown and green algae 

 crowd together, and sometimes green algse, e. g. Enteromorpha and 

 Acrosiphonia , sometimes red, e. g. Porphyra and Rhodymenia pre- 

 dominate over large tracts. Even in the size of the plants, the 

 red algae may rival the brown algae. With the exception of some 

 Laminarice and AlaricE which in favourable places sometimes ex- 

 tend into the littoral region, only Himanthalia attains any consider- 

 able height. 



In connection with this brief description of the general charac- 

 ter of the algal vegetation I endeavour to give in the diagram above 

 a general view of the different algae-formations and algae-associa- 

 tions, the different levels at which the}^ occur, and the manner in 

 which they replace each other; thus, it will be clearly seen that 

 the number of algae-associations reaches its height in the littoral 

 region and then gradually decreases on each side. 



