17 
Family II. LAMINARIEiE. Grev. 
Olive colored, inarticulate sea-weeds, whose spores are superficial, either forming 
indefinite cloud-like patches, or covering the whole surface.— Harv. This family is 
divided into the following 
Gejvus, LAMINARIA. Lamour. 
Stipitate, coriaceous or membranaceous, flat, cleft, or entire, ribless. Cloudy 
spots of spores imbedded in the surface. 
No. 16. L. digitata, L. Stem cylindrical, gradually tapering and compressed 
upwards, expanding into many deeply cleft linear segments ; very tough ; root branch¬ 
ed, perennial. 
Very common in the Sound, though rarely floats into our waters. It grows six or eight feet high, while 
the cleft segments spread to three or four feet. This plant has the power of shedding its coat, which it an¬ 
nually pushes up literally over its head., and then appears in a new dress, greatly enlarged in dimensions. 
No. 17. L. saccharina, L. Stem cylindrical, filiform, expanding into a cartila¬ 
ginous linear leaf, undivided. 
Very abundant off the mouth of the harbor; after a S. E. storm, the beach at Staten Island and Fort 
Hamilton is covered for miles with this plant; it is frequently 15 or 20 feet, and at times 30 or 40 feet long; 
it is not cleft, otherwise it resembles L. digitata, and like that plant, it also sheds its coat or skin. 
Genus, CHORDA. Stack. 
Simple, cylindrical, tubular, membraneous. Fructification, a stratum of obconi- 
cal spores, much attenuated at the base ; among these spores are found elliptical a li¬ 
the rid ia. 
No. 26. C.Jilum, L. Cartilaginous, lubricous, clothed with pellucid hairs, fili¬ 
form, tapering to each extremity.— Grev, 
Annual, summer, one to five feet; below tide mark in the Sound; rarely found floating in our waters. 
Family III. SFQROCHNACE2E. Har. 
Olive colored, inarticulate ; spores attached to external jointed filaments. 
Genus, DESMARESTIA. Lamour. 
Filiform, compressed or flat, distichously branched, cellular, traversed by an in¬ 
ternal single-tubed jointed filament. Fructification unknown. 
No. 23. D. veridis ? Miill. Cylindrical, filiform, repeatedly pinnate; pinnse 
and pinnulse capillary, opposite. 
On Fucus and other Algae at Hurlgate, spring and summer; 6 to 15 inches long. This plant conforms 
to the published description of D. veridis of Miill, though it differs from a European specimen that I have 
seen by that name. 
