ì' '
Hate CCCXTI.
Sor. Ch lo eo s perm eæ . Fam.
P l a t e CCCXXI.
VAUCHERIA VELUTINA, Ag.
G en. C h ar. V m id s aggregated, tubular, continuous, capillary, coloured
by an internal, green, pulverulent mass. Fructification, dark green,
homogeneous sporangia [goniooystm), attached to the frond. Grev.
V au o h e eia {Be C.),—in honour of M. Vaucher, a distinguished
Swiss writer upon fresh-water
V a u ch e ria v c lu tin a ; iilaments creeping; branches erect, fastigiate,
woven into a velvety stratum; sporangia solitary, globose, lateral,
on short stalks.
Vaucheria velutiua, Ag. Syst. p. 312. Hook. Br. I I . vol. ii. p. 319. Harv.
Man. ed. 1. p. 147. ed. 2. p. 196. Kutz. Syst. Alg. p. 487.
H a b On the muddy sea-shore, and on mud-covered rocks, between tidemarks,
g e n e ra lly above half-tide level. Annual. Spring and summer.
km m \, Capt. Carmichael. Miltown Malbay; RossBegh; Cushendall,
and several other places on the Irish coast^ W. H, H . (Probably all
round the coast.)
G e o g r . D i s t b . Shores of Europe.
D e s c r . This plant forms widely spreading, velvety patches, from a few inches
to several feet in diameter, and from a quarter of an inch to an inch in
thickness. The lower part of the mass consists of innumerable, irregularly
branching, interwoven, capillary fronds, of a tough membranous consistence
; the larger portion of them being usually dead, with a very ofien-
sive odom-. The upper stratum of filaments alone exhibits marks of vegetation.
The greater portion of each filament is decumbent, but here and
there it throws up erect, short branches of nearly equal length, or standing
at equal height, and these, closely placed together though originating ni
separate prostrate threads, from the pile of the velvet-like patch. Ihe
lower portions of the tubular filamentous frond are colourless and empty—
the upper, and especially the erect branches contain a bright green granular
fluid. Sporangia globose, very dark green with a pellucid border; each
borne at or near the apex of a short branchlet. Colour of the stratum a
dark, shilling green, when free from mud, which frequently nearly chokes
the plant.
The specimen here figured was gathered at Cushendall, on
the Antrim coast, where the plant grows in scattered patches,
over rocks slightly coated with mud, and covered by every tide.
It was in fructification in August, but appeared to he rather past
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