stance at first cartflaginous, firm and elastic, but soon, on removal from tlie
water, becoming flaccid. Colour, when growing, a clear olive broivn, soon
becoming verdigi-is green m the air, and when preserved in the lierbarimii
usually a yellowish ohve.
A very elegant plant, one of the most beautiful of our olive
coloured Algai, and not uncommon on any of the British shores.
It was first described by Ligbtfoot in his ‘Flora Scotica,’ where
an excellent figure is also given. With a perfect regularity in
its branching, and in all the lesser details of its habit, there is so
much difference in the relative breadth of the frond, that specimens
from difierent parts of the coast have a very opposite
aspect. In some the branches are broader than oiir larger
figure represents, and these approach the narrower forms of the
exotic D. herbácea, whose broader varieties have branches as wide
as the lacmiiB of a Laminaria ■, in others the frond is so narrow,
that, as Mr. Turner well observes, such individuals may, at first
sight, be mistaken for luxuriant fronds of D. viridis, whose
narrower varieties are as delicate as the finest Confervce. One
would scarcely expect this close connection by comparing merely
typical states of these three species, but by an extensive suite of
specimens the approximation may be very clearly shown, but it
never arrives at the point where one absolutely passes into the
other.
Desmarestia ligulata is widely distributed in the Northern
Atlantic, and probably as common on the American as the
Em-opean side, though we have as yet no evidence of the fact.
In the southern hemisphere I am only aware of its having been
found at Cape Horn, where Dr. J. D. Hooker dredged, from a
considerable depth, specimens in aU respects similar to British
individuals. ^ This fact is the more interesting because the same
locahty furnishes another closely analogous, but perfectly distinct
specms, D. Bossii, which, but for the presence of the true
D. ligulata, one would be inclined to regard as its representative.
SSidTÍÍ.Í.Í,”''*' 1”«
:
m a m