B [ 1699 ]
C O N F E R V A rupestris.
G r een Hock Conferva.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algce.
Gen. Char. Seeds produced within the substance of
the capillary or jointed frond, or in closed tubercles
united with it.
Spec. Char. Dull green. Filaments much branched,
clustered, rigid, straight, obtuse. Joints elongated,
even. Partitions colourless.
Syn. Conferva rupestris. Linn. Sp. PI. 1637. Huds.
601. With. v. 4. 140. Hull. 334. Relh. 485.
Dillw. Coyif. t. 23.
C. marina trichodes ramosior. D ill. Muse. VS. t. 5.
ĥ 2 9 .
C. marina trichoides, seu muscus marinus virens te-
nuifolius. Dill, in R aii Syn. 60.
T h i s is a very common species, and familiar to most observers
of marine plants. It occurs frequently on the sea
shore, growing in dense tufts upon rocks, pebbles, or dead
shells, and is known by its dull verdigrise (not olive) green,
and a slight rigidity or harshness when handled.
The stems are from 3 to 6 inches long, very much and repeatedly
branched, slender and even ; the branches mostly
alternate, erect and straight ; sometimes opposite or clustered.
Joints cylindrical, at least twice or thrice as long as they are
broad, often much more. At each end they are pellucid and
colourless. In drying the green matter often collects most at
the upper end of each joint, which so becomes swelled. The
fructification seems not to have been discovered.
What Hudson and his followers have made a variety of
this, and which is figured by Dillenius, t. 5. f . 28, was
judged by Mr. Turner when at Oxford to be a new species,
which the account of it in Dillenius abundantly justifies.
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