Filaments curved, thick, almost cylindrical, with here and
there an enlarged spherical cellule.
N. crassisporum Menegh., Consp. Alg. Furop. p. 7.; et W.
macrosporum, Monographia Nostochinearum Italicarum,
p. 116. pi. xiv. fig. 2.
Hab. Ire lan d : Mr. Moore.
Meneghini describes the frond of his N. macrosporum as
being polymorphous; in my specimens it was regularly
spherical. Meneghini’s description, however, in other respects
accords so well with my examples that there scarcely a doubt
can exist as to their identity with the N. macrosporum.
“ But different objects stimulate different minds to inquiry. Perhaps
the contemplation of the vegetable kingdom may be suited to the varied
conditions of more persons than the investigation of the animal structure;
for plants, abundantly bordering our paths, are more readily procured for
the purposes of analytical examination, attract more continual attention
in our moments of leisure by many trivial allurements, and give little or
no shock to the most irritable sympathies during dissection. The vegetable
kingdom, as a manifest part of a universally concatenated system,
presents unquestionable traces of the great Intelligence which has planned
and constructed the whole. These traces appear so singularly diversified
through every part of the great sphere of human observation, that the
conclusion is irresistible, that such diversity has been especially intended
as a final cause to awaken admiration in beings of duly adapted intelligence,
to stimulate feelings made to he in harmony with such display of
beauty and of glory; with a purpose to obviate all doubt, to evoke continual
rapture, and to elevate the soul of man through transitions of fear
and wonder and awe to adoration and to divine love, which is said to be
the perfection of all wisdom.”— J. S. Duncan's Botanical Theology.
ALGM GLOBULIFERfE.
F am . x v i . ULVACE.F.
Char. Frond gelatinous, saccate, tubulose, or membranaceous.
Cells either spherical and scattered singly throughout the
mucous fro n d irregularly, in pairs, in fours, or multiples
o f that number ; or polygonal, and crowded together.
T h e species of the family Ulvacece appear, so far as the
freshwater examples are concerned, to require a separation
into two sections : the first including the genera Ulva, at least
the single freshwater species of that genus Ulva hullosa (of
the marine species, I have no exact knowledge), Tetraspora,
H y drums, and Merismopedia ; the second, the genus Entero-
morpha. In the first, the cells are small, and spherical, being
imbedded at considerable Intervals from each other in the
mucous fro n d ; in the second, the cells are large, polygonal,
and attached firmly to each other, the mucous nidus having
disappeared.
The reproduction of this family does not appear to have
been satisfactorily determined. In Agardh’s memoir on the
propagation of the Algce, referred to so often, the following
remarks occur: ■—
“ My father advanced the opinion that the cellules disposed
often in fours were the seeds, which was contradicted by
Lyngbye. Greville in the work cited above * observes, that
from three to four granules are disposed in the cellules of the
frond, but he pronounces not upon the function which ought
to be attributed to these granules. In this uncertainty, some'
observations on the movement of the globules of Tetraspora
lubrica, should easily decide the question; but no person
* AlgaB BritannicEe.
u 4