F U C U S Palmetta.
D w a rf Palm Fucus.
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga.
G en. C h a r . .Seeds produced in cluttered tubercles,
which burft at their fummits.
Spec. Char. Stalk round, nearly Ample. Frond
branching into many palmate threading vemlefs
fegments. Tubercles on the extreme linear lobes.
Sy n . Fucus Palmetta. Turn. Syn. 2 1 . Stackhoufe
Ner. B rit. 1 0 2 . t. 1 6 .
O u r figure of this Fucus is taken from the very fpecimen
fent to Mr. Turner by Mr. Stackhoufe, the only Britith botanift
who has found this fpecies. It grows parafitically on the large
Items of F. digitatus on the Cormfh coalt. Thefe gentlemen
have followed Profeffor Efper in calling it F. Palmetta-, though
that name was preoccupied by Gmelin: but as his is a doubtful
fpecies, we accede to their decifion j at the fame time begging
leave to obferve that a new name would have been preferable.
The root produces feveral {lender, round, moftly undivided
{talks, which expand into a fpreading pale red, palmate, manyfingered
leaf, of a thin membranous texture, without veins, and
deftitute of teeth or ferratures. The extreme fubdivifions are
linear and very narrow; and on thefe grow the tubercles,
feffile, globofe, of a darker red than the frond, containing
many feeds, which efcape by the upper half of each tubercle
feparating in time from its bafe. By the fituation of its fructification
this plant is, as Mr. Turner juftly obferves, fufiiciently
diftinguifhable from F. memhranifolius, the only fpecies with
which it could otherwife be confounded.