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P l a t e CLXXVI.
LEATHESIA BERKELEY!, H a r v .
G e n . Ch a e . Frond globose or lobed, fleshy, composed of jomted, colourless,
dichotomous filaments, issuing from a central point; their apices,
which constitute a fleshy coating to the frond, coloured and tufted.
Fructification; oval spores, attached to the coloured tips of the filaments.
L bathesia {Oray),-Fai honour of the Rev. Mr. Leathes, a
British naturahst.
L bathesia Aerfe/eyi; fronds dark brown, depressed, fleshy, solid; filaments
densely packed.
CiiiETOPHOKA Berkeley!, Grev. in Berk. Gl. Alg. 1 .1. fig. 2. Harv. in Hook.
Br. FI. vol. ii. p. 390. Wyatt, Alg. Banm. no. 231. Harv. Man. p. 123.
H ab . On submarine rooks, between tide m a rk s ;’exposed at low water.
Annual. Summer. Torquay, Rev. M. J. Berkeley. Tor Abbey rocks,
Mrs. Wyatt. Rocks at Kilkee, Co.Clare (1838); Miltown Malbay;
and Vaientia, Kerry, W. II. H.
Geogr. D is t r , South of England and West of Ireland.
D e sc e . Fronds gregarious, one or two inches in diameter, from a quarter to half
an inch in thickness, convex, b u t depressed, irregular in form, dark brown,
fleshy, soft, somewhat elastic, not gelatinous to the touch, solid a t all
periods of its growth. Filaments very densely packed, dichotomous,
composed of three kinds of cells; the cells of the lower p a rt cylindrical or
slightly pyriform, several times longer than their d iameter; those of the
middle portion bead-like, oval, partially coloured; those of the terminal
branchlets, which are irregularly branched and densely compacted together,
very short and full of dark-olive endochrome. Fruit unknown. In drying,
the plant shrinks considerably, and partially adheres to paper.
m
m
W
iiik
A small plant, more curious than beautiful, first noticed by
the Rev. M. J. Berkeley on rocks at Torquay, from which locality
I have received specimens gathered by Mrs. Grifiiths and
Mrs. Wyatt. On the west coast of Ireland it is plentiful in
several places and probably is pretty generally distributed along
our shores, being overlooked on account of its being often nearly
of tlie colour of the rock on which it grows, and resembling, iu
its fleshy ajipearance and feel, the collapsed body of the common
A c tin ia . The Irish specimens (from which, in a living state, our
figure is taken) appear to be identical with those published by
Mrs. Wyatt, and agree very well with tlie description of the
A I