f i [ 2463 ]
CONFERVA stictica.
Many-dotted Combined Conferva.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algae.
Gen. Char. Seeds produced within the substance of
the capillary or jointed frond, or in closed tubercles
united with it.
Spec. Char. Green. Filaments unbratiched, very
slender, here and there slightly bent, and combined
by their angles. Joints cylindrical, four
times as long as broad. Colouring matter in a
triple irregular series of dots.
C o m m u n ic a t e d by Mr. W. Borrer from ditches in Henfield
Level, Sussex, with the following remarks.
It forms large masses on the water, much like C.fracta,
#.-2338, full of air-bubbles, being pale and yellowish above water,
and of a blackish green under. The threads are not slippery,
like other combined species. Their diameter nearly equals
C. nitida, t■ 2337, but the joints are four or five times longer
than broad. When young, the colour is a dull pale green, and
about three imperfectly spiral lines of shining granules are with
difficulty distinguishable. Afterwards these lines become more
conspicuous, the rest of the filament being now perfectly colourless,
and their component granules larger, but their arrangement
is still irregular. The threads subsequently unite here and there,
not by every joint, and their connecting processes are usually
nearer to one end of the joint than to the other. Such filaments
are divaricated at the points of connection, rather less abruptly
than in genvflexa, t. 1914. In some, of the combined joints,
the contents appear unchanged; in others they form a mass of
larger granules than in the lines; and some have a large oval
seed, which often swells the joint. Some traces of unchanged
lines-occur, now and then, in the fructifying joints.
We subjoin, at B, a bit of C. bipunctata, t. 1610, in its combined
state, sent also by Mr. Borrer; by which, as he observes,
it appears to be Conjugata cruciata of Vaucher.