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CONFERVA caerulescens.
Sky-blue Conferva.
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga.
Gen. Char. Seeds produced within the substance of
the capillary or jointed frond, or in closed tubercles
united with it.
Spec. Char. Light purplish blue. Filaments unbranched,
slender, curved, approximating and
uniting here and there. Joints six times as long as
broad, the combined ones greatly shortened. Seeds
green.
F o u n d by Mr. W. Borrer, in a boggy pool on Henfield Common,
Sussex, July 3d, 1812, and communicated to us under the
above name, which appears very suitable.
The dull blueish hue of the threads is unusual in this tribe of
Confervcb, and their mode of union, or at least its consequences,
is peculiar. The joints are originally six or eight times as long
as broad, exactly cylindrical, pellucid, with a central, slightly
spiral, dotted, green line. Such as meet, and unite laterally,
with those of neighbouring filaments, become prodigiously shortened,
though scarcely dilated, and their green contents, on coalescing,
grow more enlarged and conspicuous.
This species belongs to the family of conjugates, like C. nitida,
t. 2337; spiralis, t. 1656; genyflexa, t. 1914, &c.
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