POTASH FROM KELP. 13 
Such a plant would send up successive pairs of fronds. The size 
attained by some kelp plants indicates that they do have that simple 
method of growing, although the kelp beds are built up by plants 
of somewhat different habit. 
THREE TYPES OF DEVELOPMENT. 
After the first pair of fronds make their start, young plants of 
Macrocystis begin to show differences in the method of develop- 
ment which become more and more pronounced the older the plants 
become. The different types fall readily into three groups, whick 
may later be separated into distinct species. 
The first type may possibly have the simple habit of growth 
suggested above. It is never a large plant. Usually it occurs im 
a kelp bed as two or three fronds in a clump differing conspicuously 
from the remaining fronds. The characteristics are: Slender stipes, 
large globular cysts with solid, stipe-like bases, and very long, thin 
leaf blades. Crandall (2) noted the type at Johnson’s Lee, Santa 
Rosa Island, and at Anacapa 
_ Island. The author noticed it par- 
ticularly at the eastern end of Se 
San Nicolas Island. The presence \ \ \\ \ <S 
ee ae ee ee ee ee ee Se 
of these fronds among those of Kh 
. ° \ SS 
normal type merely indicates that Ss pe, | 
4 = % ft 
there are two or more plants in i WS as 
one clump—a very common occur- ‘ of | 
rence. In this case, however, a ‘~“\~ a 
distinct type is seen to be present uf 
muceemecuitarities are not due tO |... = vTesminal blade or “bud efe 
environment. It has not been the vigorous frond. A large number of 
purpose; in these investigations, or from ‘it. “Onehalf lite se) 
which have been carried on for 
practical instead of purely scientific purposes, to try to make species. 
the much more common type of Macrocystis, the typical Jf. 
yrifera, the second pair of fronds usually bear one or two lateral 
eaves without cysts at first, cysts appearing later. These may give 
rise to fronds. There is thus an increase in the number of points 
from which fronds may arise. Practically all later fronds give rise 
to additional growing points in this way. Sometimes one of the 
first fronds gives rise to an additional growing point. Hence, a 
large plant may eventually be able to send up 20 or more fronds at 
the same time. The lower portion of such a plant becomes a dense 
shrub with a few stout, tortuous main stems having numerous 
branches, which themselves branch extensively. Finally, all the 
branches change to the slender, cordlike stipes of the floating fronds. 
These lower stems are harder and tougher than the long stipes. In 
many, if not the majority of plants, at least some of these basal 
leaves divide repeatedly without sending up fronds, but give rise 
instead to dense clusters of short-stemmed leaves. As the plant 
grows older these bear spores. 
The smallest drift plant found bearing spores was 15 feet long- 
It had apparently come from shallow water, and was, therefore, 
short for the age which its appearance indicated—about 8 months. 
Plants do not fruit, apparently, until 9 or 10 months old, and then 
