■J:
hi!
doclirome is at first fluid, but in the full-grown articulations (which are in
fact changed into sporangia) it becomes distinctly granular, very dense, and
of a dark colour. In drying the plant adheres to paper, but not very
firmly.
The occasional occurrence of this species in salt-water ditches
near the coast gives it a claim to be admitted into the present
work, similar to that allowed in the cases of several other of
these brackish-water plants. C. fracta is rarely found attached.
It is more commonly met with heaped together in widely extending
strata, covering the surface of the water. Sometimes in
lakes, as it thus floats about, it becomes rolled together in dense
balls, which have a good deal of the aspect of C. oegagropila, but
not the same regularly radiant structure. When fully developed
and in mature fruit, the middle portion of the frond is very frequently
entirely converted into a string of sporangia, and is
then a beautiful and characteristic microscopic object, which it is
impossible to mistake for anything else. When not in fruit,
C. fracta is more easily known from C. flavescens, which is closely
allied to it, by the shorter articulations, than hy any other
character.
Fig. 1. Part of a floating mass of C l a d o p h o r a f r a c t a :—the natural size.
2. Branches of the same :—magnified. 3. Small portions in a young and
a mature state ;— h