CRYPTOGAM! A. ALGiE. Fucus. 
97 
(Velvet Sponge Fucus. E.) On the Devon and Cornish coasts. On the 
long rock between Marazion and Penzance, plentiful. Mr. Wenman. 
And at St. Ives; also at Menabilly, near Fowey. Mr. Stackhouse. 
(Bantry Bay, in vast abundance. Miss Hutchins, in Turn. Hist. E.) 
F. fi'lum. Plant thread-shaped; tough, somewhat twisted; opake. 
{Turn. Hist. 86— E. Bot. 2487. E.)— Stackh. ii. 10— FI. Dan. 821— Pet. 
Gaz. 91. 5. 
Leaves not swimming on the surface of the water but just below it. Linn. 
Suec. n. 1153. Thread-shaped, thinnest at both ends, about a line in 
diameter, undivided, smooth, tilled with mucus, separated internally into 
joints, cartilaginous, brittle, often matted together, twisting spirally when 
dry. Colour green, blackish brown when dry, bleaching on the shore to 
straw colour or white. Gmel. Fuc. 132. Besides the twist of the plant 
there is generally a spiral seam to be observed. The cross partitions are 
not at such regular intervals as in a Conferva. They consist of reticulated 
membranes with here and there shining glassy threads, beaded wuth air 
bubbles as in the air bladder of F. nodosus, and no doubt for the purpose 
of inflation. The fructification is principally towards the top of the 
plant, and consists of clusters of seeds infinitely smaller than those of 
F. vesiculosus , adhering to the inside coat, or swimming in its fructiferous 
jelly, which is not formed into net-work, though evidently vascular. 
There are no visible openings to allow the escape of the seeds, but the 
plant decays at top when ripe, and then the seam opens. I have seen it 
seventeen feet long, or more; it is only brittle when dry. Mr. Stackhouse. 
The bleached specimens sometimes show the joints extremely distinct, as 
is the case wfith one now before me sent by Major Velley, who observes 
with Mr. Lightfoot that the transverse septa almost reduce it to the 
genus Conferva. The transverse partitions are about six in every inch of 
the plant, but not very regular. 
Sea Laces. {Chordaria filum. Link. Agard. Hook. Rocks and stones 
m the sea, common ; waving under the water like long strings. E.) 
P. Jan—Dec.* 
F. filiform hs. Gristly, thread-shaped, compressed, forked, pointed. 
Huds. 585. 
Leaf half a foot long, semi-transparent, reddish. Huds. n. 39. 
Mr. Hudson refers to no figure, and I have seen no specimen, so that this 
species rests entirely upon his authority. 
(Filiform Fucus. E.) Rocks and stones in the sea near the Isle of Walney, 
Lancashire. p. May—Oct. 
F. bifurca'tus. Cylindrical, somewhat forked: branches parallel, 
blunt, tubercled ; the divisions of the forks oval, not angular. 
Plate XVII. f 1 —{Turn. Hist. 7 —E. Bot. 726. E.) 
From five to nine inches high. Root compact, cartilaginous, adhering 
strongly to the rocks. Stems undivided for the space of three or four 
inches from the root, when they become forked, and proceeding three or 
four inches higher strike out into a continued series of very short forked 
branches clustered together. All the stems are perfectly cylindrical, 
nearly of an equal size throughout, seldom larger than a crow-quill, but 
* (The stalks, skinned when half dry and twisted, acquire so considerable a degree of 
strength and toughness, that the Highlanders use them for the same purposes as Indian 
grass. Enc. Brit. E.) 
VOL. IV. 
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