56 
NEW OR CRITICAL BRITISH ALG.E. 
fronds of the host plant. If a section be cut through these 
patches it will be seen that the primary threads penetrate deeply 
into the substance of the host plant, usually creeping along the 
muciferous canals. In this ascocyclus-like stage of its develop- 
ment the secondary erect filaments of the plant are simple, and 
usually terminate in sporangia. As will be seen from Herr 
Gran’s fig. 3 the plant at this stage greatly resembles Ascocyclus 
balticus, Eke., only differing from it in the absence of the basal 
disc. At a later stage the circular patches become confluent, and 
patches of considerable size are formed, covering the fronds of the 
Laminaria with a thick short fleece of very slender, yellowish- 
brown filaments. In the more advanced stages of development the 
erect filaments are usually more or less branched. 
At one time we were inclined to consider the form of the species 
here described as a distinct variety, and sent specimens to some of 
our correspondents under the manuscript name E. tomento soides, f. 
jmncliformis, a name which of course must give place to Herr 
Gran’s published one of p. norvegicus. Now, however, we feel far 
from certain that what we took for a variety is not the normal 
form of the plant. Farlow when he drew up his description of 
the species apparently had not seen the plant in its earlier stages 
of development. 
Herr Gran’s paper is accompanied by a good plate. 
Algevegeiationen i Tonsbergfjorden af H. H. Gran. (Christiania 
Videnskabs-Selskabs Forhandlinger for 1893, No. 7). 
In his paper on the Algal Flora of Tonsberg Fiord Herr Gran 
describes several new plants. Elachista fracta is thus described : 
* A yellowish-brown species growing on dead leaves of Zostera. 
Erect filaments abruptly tapering to the base, gradually tapering 
to the apex, joints at the growing point half, in the rest of the 
filament from twice to four times as long as broad. Plurilocular 
sporangia partly cylindrical, sometimes sparingly branched arising 
from the base of the filaments, partly conical, arising from the 
upper cells of the filaments, which themselves are divided into a 
few compartments. Unilocular sporangia unknown. 
The new species appears to differ from E. stellaris in the 
branched sporangia and the rather more abruptly attenuated bases 
of the assimilation threads. According to the author this species 
and E. stellaris bear plurilocular sporangia on the upper cells of 
the assimilation threads as well as at their bases. These sporangia 
are much like those borne on the filaments of Leptonema , and on 
this account Herr Gran would unite the two genera Elachista and 
Leptonema. We have seen bodies similar to those described by 
Herr Gran on specimens of Elachista stellaris (epiphytic on 
Spermatochnus paradoxus ) from Orkney, kindly communicated by 
the Rev. J. H. Pollexfen, but as the specimens had been dried we 
were, of course, unable to say whether they were really pluri- 
locular sporangia. If we have rightly understood the genus 
