Development of Laminaria btilbosa , L amour. 45 
Society, make the following suggestion : ‘ The apparent bulb 
is covered with short peziziform excrescences which authors 
have imagined to be rudiments of other plants. However, as 
this Fucits is always found solitary, we would suggest the idea 
that they may be receptacles of fructification. We rather 
dwell upon this idea because in the younger plants there is no 
appearance of tubercles V This suggestion comes very near 
to the truth, but it seems to have met with no credence among 
writers of the time because no grounds of any value were ad- 
vanced to support it. Turner in 1802 quite ignores the idea, 
and suggests that the processes from the bulb may be of the 
nature of the tentacles of Actinia , and thus serve to secure the 
plant to the object of attachment 1 2 . It is probable, however, 
that Goodenough referred to the smaller processes on the 
upper surface of the bulb, while Turner spoke of such as had 
already become attached to the substratum. 
Stackhouse wisely contents himself with drawing attention 
to the vesicles on the leaves of L. digitata , and, from the 
affinity of this plant to Z. bulbosa , he expresses ‘little doubt 
that its fructification is in similar vesicles 3 / Such was the 
state of knowledge when Sowerby in 1807 discovered the 
fructification of Alaria esculent a and L. bulbosa : ‘ On both 
sides of the furbelows 4 , the fructification, hitherto unobserved, 
is lodged in prominent patches, within whose substance, but 
quite distinct from the frond, the tubercles of seeds are 
arranged vertically as in F, esculentus 5 .* In 1811 Turner de- 
scribed the fructification as ‘ generally confined to the fimbri- 
ated margins of the frond, but sometimes occupying the 
whole of the stalk or even spreading in broad irregular patches 
over the lower part of the leaf 6 / Finally, Gardiner in 1885 
mentioned the fact that the sporangia are to be found on the 
swollen root, on its individual processes, and even to the tips 
of these 7 . 
1 Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. iii. p. 183. 2 Brit. Fnci. 
3 Nereis Britannica, 1801. 4 The folded edges of the otherwise flat stalk. 
5 Eng. Bot. No. 1760, 1807. 6 Turn. Hist. Fuc. 
7 Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. vol. v. p. 224. 
