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F UCUS plumosus.
F e a t h e r y F u c u s .
V 10)
CRYPTOGAMIA Algae.
Gen. Char. Seeds produced in clustered tubercles,
which burst at their summits.
Spec. Char. Frond rather cartilaginous, repeatedly
branched; the branches doubly pinnate: the ultimate
segments opposite, awlshaped, tipped with fruit.
Tubercles four-cleft when ripe.
Syn. Fucus plumosus. Linn. Mant. 134. Gooden. &
TVoodw. T r.o f LimuSoc. v .3. 188. Turn. Syn. 296.
Huds.587. With. v. 4. 120. Hidl. 324. Light/. 95.5.
Stackh. t. 15.
Fucoides purpureum eleganter plumosum. Dill, in
Rail Syn. 3 8 . t. 2. f . 5 .
O n e of the most elegant of our submarine plants is the Fucus
plumosus, which is found occasionally on various parts of the
British coast, bearing its fructification in summer or autumn.
The frond rises from a small convex callous disk to the
height of from 3 to 6 inches. The main stem is linear, narrow,
compressed, irregularly branched and subdivided, finely
pectinated with compound pectinated branches. The minute
ultimate subdivisions are setaceous, compressed, opposite, a
few of them here and there tipped with a solitary round small
capsule. Capsules are also more regularly placed, in an alternate
order, each on a short footstalk opposite to the main subdivisions
of each branch. They are remarkable, as Mr. Turner
observes, for splitting into 4 or 5 segments when ripe, instead
of falling off with their seeds as in most species. Mr.
Sowerby has observed transverse undulations in the branches,
resembling the articulations of a Conferva; which justifies
Gmelin’s description. See Turner’s Synopsis 300.
The colour of the fresh branches is a beautiful pink or light
crimson; of the older parts a purplish brown or black. The
plant is perennial; its substance membranous approaching to
cartilaginous.