330 
THE SEAWEEDS 
Attachment or holdfast a mat of fibres, surrounding a central disc. 
Fronds loosely tufted, 8 cm. to 15 cm. high, and as much in the expansion 
of the branches, irregularly divided from the base in a sub dichotomous 
manner, but with the branches and their divisions spreading in all 
directions. In the young plant the whole frond is pellucidly articulate; 
nor 'do the joints of the stem or branches ever become opaque or corticated 
with internally developed cellules. But they soon are coated externally 
with decurrent fibres, originating at the insertion of the ramuli and extend- 
ing downwards, clasping round the branch or stem, and at length enveloping 
Fig. 160 . — Monospora licmophora : a, plant; b, a dichoto- 
mous branchlet, and a single joint of a 
branch; c, tip of a branchlet, with axillary 
tetraspores; d, a tetraspore. (After Harvey.) 
it in a filamentous sheath. The shaggy-coated rope-like stem is then often 
2 mm. or more in diameter, the major branches about 1 mm., and the lesser 
ones proportionately less thick, as the coat of fibrils is less developed. The 
ultimate branches generally remain nude; they are remarkably straight 
and rod-like, about 5 cm. long, and bear at every node, in alternate but 
laxly spiral order, short flabelliform ramuli. The ramuli are 2 cm. to 
4 cm. long, several times forked, their segments of equal length. The articu- 
lations of the branches are five to eight, of the ramuli four to five times as 
