124 
FU<;US VESICULOSUS. 
appear to have been known to the ancients, as we have no account 
of it till the time of Clusius, who describes it under the name of 
Quercus Marina, or sea oak. It is one of the most common of the 
Fucus tribe that is met with on our shores, and on some parts of the 
coast it is cast up on the beach, and grows in such abundance, as to 
become a very valuable product to the proprietor^ of the rocky 
shores. In Scotland it is known under the names of Kelp-ware, 
black tang, or strawberry-ware ; this lalter name is given to it when 
the recepticles are large and swollen. 
The root is an expanded, black, woody, callous disc. The frond 
is smooth, glossy, flat, winged, of a dark olive green colour, becom- 
ing paler near the apices ; every where linear, dichotomous, from 
one to four feet long, and furnished through ils whole length, with a 
midrib of a blackish colour, as thick as a goose quill at its base, but 
gradually growing pale and thin. The substance of the frond is 
coriaceous, tough and flexible, but when dried becomes brittle. In 
the membranous part of the frond, there is found immersed spherical 
vesicles, varying in size from a pea to a hazel-nut, always close to the 
midrib, externally smooth, and their cavity full of air. The fructifi- 
cations consist of compressed, fringed resceptacles, solitary or twin, 
placed at the end of the branches ; in form roundish or elliptical, 
from one fourth of an inch to one inch or more long, perforated and 
filled with a tasteless pellucid mucus, through which passes anas- 
tamosing fibres forming a sort of net work. The whole plant when 
dried, becomes of a dark blackish colour and very brittle, and often 
covered with a saline efflorescence. 
This and some other species of Fucus* are used for the manufac- 
ture of kelp (an impure carbonate of soda), this is chiefly done in 
the month of July and August, when round pits or basins are formed 
in the earth or sand on the beach ; in the bottom of which, a fire is 
kindled with turf or peat, and kept up by constantly adding a sup- 
ply of sea-weed suflicieutly dry just to burn ; when the pit or furnace 
is nearly full of the fused sea-weed, iron rakes are rapidly drawn 
backward and forward through the mass, to bring it to an uniform 
state of fusion ; after which, (when cool) it is broken into pieces, 
and removed to the store-house for use. 
Qualities, Medical Properties, &c. This plant has a 
blight but peculiar odour, and a nauseous alkaline taste, similar to 
* Fucus Bulbosus, Fucus Digitatus, Fucus Saccharinus. Fucus Nodosus, and Fucus 
Scrratus, are chiefly employed ou our shores. 
