f f
C O N F E R V A castanea.'
Creeping Chesnut-coloured Conferva.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algce.
Gen. Char. Seeds produced -within th e substance o f
the capillary or jointed fro n d , or in closed tubercles
united with it.
Spec. Char. Chesnut brown. Filaments creeping,
branched, entangled, alternately bipinnate. Branches
divaricated, tapering, acute. Joints elongated,
even.
Syn. Conferva castanea. D illw . Conf. t. 7 2 .
IVTlSS Biddulph, by whom we have at various times been
favoured with many of those curious vegetable productions
that escape the notice of vulgar eyes, discovered this Conferva
in April 1806 near Southampton, growing among Hypnum
molluscum. Mr. Dillwyn, who alone has made it known to
the public, found the same species “ on hedge banks in a
If lane on a high hill between the Gower and Lougher roads,
“ about 4 miles from Swansea,” and has illustrated it by
an excellent figure. It may possibly be found in other places,
for its resemblance to several other plants, and, above all, to
the fibrous radicles of many mosses, may have caused it to
be overlooked.
This species creeps in loose entangled patches, not only
among mosses, but over dead stalks and sticks, and, as Mr.
Dillwyn informs us, over stones and earth. Its colour is a
clear chesnut brown, lightest in the young shoots. The
creeping stem throws off many alternate procumbent curved
branches, which are twice or thrice subdivided in a pinnate but
alternate manner, their ultimate divisions being acute, and
they all stand almost at right angles with the branch from
which they spring. The joints are even; in the stem and
main branches 3 or 4 times as long as they are broad, in the
younger parts rather shorter in their proportion. No fructification
is known.