44 



COLLECTING SEA-WEEDS. 



The most valuable plant of all for our purpose is 

 the Sea Lettuce [Ulva latissima). Every one is 

 familiar with its broad leaves of the most brilliant 

 green, as thin as silver-paper, all puckered and 

 folded at the edge, and generally torn and fretted 

 into holes. It is abundant in the hollows of the 

 rocks between tide-marks, extending and thriving 

 even almost to the level of high water, and bearing 

 with impunity the burning rays of the summer's 

 sun, provided it be actually covered with a stratum 

 of water, even though this be quite tepid. It there- 

 fore is more tolerant than usual of the limited 

 space and profuse light of an Aquarium, where it 

 will grow prosperously for years, giving out abund- 

 antly its bubbles of oxygen gas all day long. It 

 is readily found ; but owing to the excessive slen- 

 derness of its attachment to the rock, and its great 

 fragility, it is not one of the easiest to be obtained 

 in an available state. The grass-like Enteromorphce 

 have the same qualities and habits, but their length 

 and narrowness make them less elegant. The 

 CladophoTce^ however, are desirable ; they are plants 

 of very simple structure, consisting of jointed 

 threads, which grow in dense brushes or tufts of 

 various tints of green. Some of them are very 

 brilliant : the commonest kind is C, rupestris^ which 

 is of a dark bluish-green ; it is abundant in most 

 localities. 



These are a few of the sorts of sea-plants which 

 are met with in the situations I have described. 

 In order to transfer them to an Aquarium, a por- 

 tion of the rock on which they are growing must 

 be removed. These plants have no proper roots, 

 and therefore cannot be dug up and replanted like 

 an orchis or a violet, but adhere by a minute disk 



