NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



9 



the water, in parallel lines at a few yards from each other, and have a 

 yellow brown colour, like the long stringy fibre which is sometimes 

 seen floating in the English channel, and which I suppose to be the 

 natural colour of all marine plants growing deeply beneath the surface 

 of the water. These nodules, or spheres, are composed of a vast 

 number of small branches about half an inch long, which shoot from 

 each other at an angle of about forty degrees : hence they multiply 

 continually toward the superficies of the sphere ; and each extreme point 

 produces a round seed-vessel. This is little more than one-tenth part of 

 an inch in diameter, is hollow, and contains a small reddish brown seed 

 scarcely occupying one fiftieth part of the husk. The leaf of the plant 

 springs from the joints of the branches, is oblong, indented at the edges, 

 and about an inch and a half long by a quarter of an inch broad. 



When the nodule is dexterously taken up, all the branches may be 

 traced to one principal stalk ; and this invariably shows a fracture, the 

 part by which it has been joined to some larger stem. This fracture is 

 frequently quite fresh, and in large and vigorous plants shows distinctly 

 a woody part and a cortex. On the edges of the latter the first 

 symptoms of decay appear. They become brown, and separate them- 

 selves from the wood. This also then assumes a darker colour and 

 exhibits the regular process of disorganization, just in the same manner 

 as does a slip from a gooseberry or currant bush. In process of time 

 the whole plant assumes a darker hue, and as it decays floats considerably 

 lower than it did. When kept out of the water for a few hours it 

 becomes harsh and brown ; and acquires the peculiar smell of marine 

 vegetables in a state of putrefaction. 



Sailors say that this weed grows in the Gulph of Mexico, that it 



passes round Cape Florida with the stream, and, proceeding between 



Bermuda and the Western Islands, settles in the eddy of that vast 



current which encircles the Northern Atlantic. To me, however, this 



hypothesis appears to be inadmissible, not only because there is an 



evident absurdity in supposing that plants may move rapidly in a still 



water, which the word eddy here must signify, but because it is impos- 



B 



