/& G [ 1969 ]
F U C U S fibrosus.
Fibrous Fucus.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algce.
G e n . C h a r . Seeds produced in clustered tubercles,
which burst at their summits.
S p e c . C h a r . Frond round, repeatedly branched. Leaflets
undivided and entire; the lower ones mid-
ribbed, linear ; the rest setaceous. Vesicles oval,
innate in the branches. Tubercles crowded, nearly
terminal.
Syn. Fucus fibrosus. Huds.515. Gooden, and fVaodw.
Tr. o f Linn. Soc. v. 3 . 137. Turn. Syn. 93.
With. v. 4 . 8 7 . Hull. 3 1 8 .
F. baccatus. Gmel. Fuel, 9 0 . t. 3.ƒ. 2.
F. setaceus. Huds. 515. JViih. v. 4. 86.
F. radicibus arborum fibrosis similis. Rail Syn. 4 9 .
F. seu Acinaria maritima anglicana. Bocc. Mus. di
Fis. 270, t. 6 . f 5 ? copied in Gmelin, i. 1. B. f . 2,
for F. nodosus!
F o r this specimen, gathered on the south coast of England,
we are obliged to Mr. Turner. The colour, according to that
gentleman, is, inthefresh plant, “ a subdiaphanous yellowish
olive,” but when dried it remains ever after nearly black. The
frond is very much branched, from 1 to 3 feet high. Stalk
thick and often compressed at the lower part; otherwise
round, slender, zigzag. Lower leaflets stalked, linear, obtuse,
entire, with a mid-rib ; the rest setaceous, various in length,
Mr. Turner observes that sometimes all the leaflets are linear,
sometimes all setaceous. Elliptical innate vesicles, about a
line long, occur here and there along the branches, and at the
summits numerous tubercles are densely clustered.
When the leaves are all setaceous,-this is supposed to be
F. setaceus of Hudson, who quotes Boccone’s miserable figure;
which figure is copied and gratuitously enlarged by Gmelin as
a variety of F. nodosus. This Boccone’s description cannot
authorize, but his plant may very well be our fibrosus. As
he gathered it at Deal, it seems incumbent on English botanists
to make something or other of his synonym, and this is
one of those cases in which jt is as profitable to believe as to
examine.