18 
No. 24. D. confervalis. Filiform, cylindrical, capilary, dichotomous, and irre¬ 
gularly branched ; branches and ramuli very long ; pale green. 
Winter, on Fucus vesiculosus at Yellow Hook, Red Hook, and other places ; 2 to 12 inches long, very 
flaccid when young, adheres well to paper. 
Family IV. DICTYOTB2EJ. Grev. 
Olive colored, inarticulate, whose spores are superficial, disposed in definite spots 
or lines, (sort). Mar « 
Genus, PUNCTARIA. Grev. 
Undivided, membranaceous, flat, ribless, with a naked scutate root. Fructifi¬ 
cation scattered over the whole plant in distinct round dots. 
No. 25. P. laiifolia. Grev. Pale olive green, gelatinous and tender, linear 
or oblong, suddenly tapering at base. 
Annual, spring and summer, 6 to 12 or 20 inches long, and half to 1 or 2 inches broad; rare in most 
parts of the Bay ; found at Fort Hamilton. 
No. 26. P. plataginea. Roth. Dark brown, coriaceo-membranaceous ; much 
attenuated at base. 
Spring and summer, common on all our shores; 3 to 10 inches long; does not adhere well to paper, 
and therefore is difficult to preserve. 
Genus, AP1ARIUM. 
Flat, exhibiting primary cells of perfect hexagonal form. 
No. 27. A. apicula. Dull olivaceous green, half to one and a half inches long, 
linear, dichotomously cleft; constricted at the axils, where small tufts give it the ap¬ 
pearance of being tied with a ribbon in a bow-knot. 
On Fucus vesiculosus, and at low water mark on a rock at Jersey City late in October ; it may attain a 
larger growth ; 1 found it on two occasions only, and each time only a single tuft. The walls of the cells are 
pellucid, and, when recent, those near the edges are hexagonal with mathematical precision; approaching 
the axils and middle, the cells become abnormal, elongated, irregular, and distorted, giving it the appearance 
of midrib; every step of the irregularity is, however, traceable from the perfect hexagon ; the endochrome 
is green, granular; a few cells are partially or entirely vacant, as if the spores had matured, swarmed, and 
left the hive. This remarkable plant is the only instance of perfect hexagonal organization that I have ob¬ 
served in Algae. The hexagon is well known to be the most economical structure, where the walls require 
labor, and the cell or space is desirable without waste in the interstices ; hence the bee, whose object is space 
for a store-house, with the least possible expenditure of labor in the plastic walls, always make the comb of 
that figure. This analogy in structure, and alsd in the sori of viviparous and vivaceous young, forcibly 
urges a conviction, that like the bee, who can at will change one of the sleeping chrysalis into a fructifying 
and prolific queen, the Algae may through the antheridia, or some other organ, fructify at will the endo¬ 
chrome in any cell, and thus create a queen that may send forth her swarms of vivaceous spores. In this 
hypothesis it is not necessary that we endow the Algae with intellect, or the bee with sagacity, or even with 
instinct as generally understood, for when we place the bee’s eye under a microscope, we find it reticulated 
entirely covered with a net-work of perfect hexagonal meshes. Thus we learn that He who lists to the lone 
raven, and “ who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” has planned and directed every step ; so that the bee 
has no discretion in the matter, and could not, if he would, construct his cells in any other form. 
