m
2. Coccochloris muscicola Menegh.
Plate L X X V I I I . Figs. 3 a. 3 b.
Char. “ Frond mucous, indefinite, verg slender, investing mo.sses,
blackish green ; the smallest globules perfectly spherical,
green, generally germinate. Vesicles elliptical, the larger
entirely filled with lesser globules, and not surrounded with
ang margin."
P. hgalina, B. muscicola Harv., Manual, p. 177.
Hab. Aberdeen : Dr. Dickie.
“ The mucous pellicle, blackish green, shining, covers extensively
mosses, and at the same time includes with our Coccochloris,
Oscillatoria autumnalis and Nostoc lichenoideum, the
Coccochloris globules scarcely measuring the three-thousandth
part of a millimetre, imbedded in a soft and easily yielding
mucus, in which are mixed, scattered elliptical vesicles, varying
in dimensions from the hundredth to the twenty-fifth part
of a millemetre, entirely filled with smaller globules closely
heaped together. The vesicles themselves are seen to be
constituted of a very slender membrane, which embraces them,
but not presenting a diaphanous margin, and which by laceration
is scarcely to be perceived : when the membrane has been
ruptured, the contents of the globules escape into irregular
angular heaps. The vesicle from which the globules have
proceeded is not apparent : this however is certain, th a t the
globules are not surrounded by any peculiar membrane.
“ The vesicles effused into irregular areolæ resemble the
beginnings of new fronds, which, evolved in the mucous matrix,
and quickly becoming confiuent, form a mucous peUicle. Hence
the frond is said to be indefinite, although, in the beginning,
as in all other species of this genus, it is definite. This species
agrees in habit with Coccochloris protuberans, but in
structure and microscopic characters it exhibits greater affinity
with Coccochloris parietalis, as will be shewn hereafter.”
I n drying, it leaves bu t a mere stain upon the paper, most
evident at the margins of the frond.
3. Coccochloris h yalina Menegh.
P late L X X V I I I . Figs. 2 a. 2 b.
Char. Pr(m0L gelatinous, cglindrical or globose, solitary, subhyaline
; internal globules globose, very minute, green.
Palmella hyalina L y n g b .; Grev. Scot. Crypt. Fl. t. 247.;
Harv. in Hook. Brit. Flor. p. 397.; Harv. in Manual,
p. 177.
Hah. Bogs at Fisher’s Castle, Tunbridge W e lls : Mr.
Jenner.
Lyngbye describes this species as follows: — “ Mass gelatinous,
cylindrical, solitary, solid, fioating on the surface of
water, an inch or two long, colour commonly watery, pellucid,
except as regards tha t which is owing to the internal
granules, which are of a delicate green colour. Substance in
the highest degree lubricous, adheres, in drying, to paper.”
Brehisson, however, states that it attains to the remarkable
size of one or two feet in length, and from six to eight inches
in thickness.
“ Specimens communicated liberally hy Cl. Brehisson
and Lenormond are five inches long, and although closely
adherent to paper, yet manifest greater solidity of the superficial
stratum over the internal substance. F or being lacerated
by compression, they exhibit the interior effused substance
hyaline, and the exterior pellicle more intensely
coloured and opaque, and divided into irregular fragments.
In the interior substance uniform, very minute globules are
imbedded, scarcely measuring the two thousandth part of a
millemetre; but the exterior pellicle is constituted of globules
somewhat larger, covering a diameter of the two hundred and
fiftieth part of a millimetre, in which oblong vesicles, altogether
filled with minute globules, from the twentieth to the
twenty-fifth part of a millimetre long, are mixed.”
Wha t appears to me to be at least a variety of this
species was sent to me by the Rev. M. J . Berkeley. The
fronds were globose, but smaller and less solid than those of
C. hyalina in its usual state, and the globules larger. See
PI. LXXVIII. fig. 5.