214 
TWO NEW PLANTS 
grasses, dead leaves, or any substance immersed in the 
water. The form is perfectly circular and plane ; the fila- 
ments or bodies of which it is composed, numerous, wedge- 
shaped, and more or less translucent ; towards the base ge- 
nerally, but sometimes in the middle, of each wedge-shaped 
filament, is a transverse line ; but I have not been able to 
ascertain whether any separation takes place at that part. 
From its fragile nature it rarely happens that a complete 
circle is seen, but I have oftener than once obtained more 
than three-fourths of one. The circles are of difi*erent sizes, 
and the filiform bodies composing them of different diame- 
ters, and consequently some are more wedge-shaped than 
others; those of the same circle are, however, generally 
uniform. The colour is a greenish-yellow (as far as the 
coloured portion extends), but there is always a consider- 
able part of each cuneiform body crystalline or transparent, 
which may arise from a collapse of the contents. In the 
centre of each circle or congeries of plants, is a circular 
unoccupied space of small diameter, which being invariably 
present^ may perhaps be its place of attachment to the sub-, 
stances on which it grows. 
Of this most singular genus, Lyngbye, in his excellent 
Terdamen Hydrophytologm Dailies, has described nine 
species. Mr Arnott and myself have ascertained three of 
these to be natives of Scotland, viz. E.Jascictdata, E. ge- 
minata, and E. paradoxa; besides another, that may pro- 
bably prove a new species. 
Early in 1820, I found this plant in a rivulet near 
Dumbryden Quarries. Soon after, Mr Arnott met \rith 
it, and determined it to be nev/. I again procured it in 
March 18S1, from watery places in the King's Park, Edin- 
burgh, 
