THE TYSON COLLECTION OF MARINE ALGAE 
By ELLEN MARION DELF, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.L.S. 
Late Yarrow Research Fellow, Girton College; Lecturer in Botany at Westfield 
College, London University ; Temporary Senior Lecturer in Botany at Cape 
Town University, 
AND 
MARGARET R. MICHELL, B.A., 
Lecturer in Botany, University of Cape Town. 
There are two collections of marine Algae in the Bolus Herbarium, that 
of Dr H. Becker including specimens from all over the world and that of the 
late Mr W. Tyson, acquired in 1913, composed almost entirely of specimens 
from the shores of the Cape Province and Natal, chiefly from Algoa Bay, the 
Kowie, the Kei mouth, and the Cape Peninsula. 
The sheets of the Tyson collection have now been arranged by us in ac- 
cordance with the classification of Engler and Prantl(5) (Nat. Pflanz. Fam. 
1897) and a list of specimens drawn up with a view to facilitating the use of 
the collection by future workers. Incorporated in the lists are such personal 
observations as we have been able to make on the herbarium and also on fresh 
material during the course of the work. Both of us have made observations 
at intervals on the seashore from April to December of this year (1920), but 
in compiling the lists one of us undertook the Green and Brown Algae (M. R. 
Michell) and the other (E. M. Delf) undertook only the Red Seaweeds. 
As this is the first list of the kind to appear in a South African Journal, it 
may not be out of place to give some account of the present position of our 
knowledge of South African seaweeds. It is hoped that the information thus 
brought together though meagre, may serve as a basis for future work. 
A short historical summary of the development of our knowledge of 
S. African seaweeds is given by Miss Barton(i) (Journ. Bot. xxxi, pp. 53, 81, 
111, 139, 171, 202, 1890) from which the following facts are taken: 
“ The earliest preserved Alga from the Cape is a specimen of Amphiroa 
which is too much broken to determine the species; it was collected by Dr Her- 
mann in 1672, and is preserved in the British Museum. The next collector 
appears to have been John Staremburgh who at some date prior to 1 703 sent 
some dried Algae to Petiver and these are also preserved in the British Museum, 
where I have seen specimens of Macrocystis pyrifera, J. Ag., an 1 1 idea, and 
