[ 1428 ]
FUCUS amphibius.
Amphibious Curve-pointed Fucus.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algae.
Gen. Char. Seeds produced in clustered tubercles,
which burst at their summits.
Spec. Char. Frond capillary, much branched. Branches
and all their subdivisions alternate, rolled in at their
points.
Syn. Fucus amphibius. Huds. 59O. Gooden, and
Woodw. Tr. o f Linn. Soc. v. 3. 227. Turn. Syn.
391. With. v. 4 . 116. Hull. 327. Stachh. Ner.
t. 14.
F. scorpioides. Huds. ed. 1. 4 7 1 . Gmel. Fuc. 135.
Fucoides erectum fruticuli specie, summitatibus in-
flexis. Dill, in Raii Syn. 3 8 . t. 2.ƒ. 6.
G r o w s on rocks and stones on the sea shore about high-
water mark, or in salt marshes; frequently, as Mr. Turner
observes, attached to the roots and stems of other sea plants.
The fronds form dense tufts, from 1 to 3 inches in height,
of a pale livid or reddish brown. They are capillary, repeatedly
and alternately subdivided; their ultimate segments acute, and
singularly incurved or rolled in, like the tail of a scorpion, or
at least like many other plants compared to the tail of that
animal; hence Hudson’s original name Scorpioides, which
having been adopted by Gmelin, it is strange that he should
have changed it afterwards, for no purpose, himself. The
fructification consists of 2 irregular rows of dark seeds, in the
swelled lateral branches.
It is Dillenius, not Ray, who has described and figured this
plant in the third edition of the Synopsis. This distinction is
but just when we criticise any of the figures in that edition;
for want of attending to it Mr. Sole has made some ridiculous
mistakes in p. 20 of his work on Mints.