/ / f [ 1702 ]
C O N F E R V A Rothii.
Rothian 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. Bright red. Filaments erect, closely
tufted, much branched. Branches alternate; the
upper ones crowded. Joints twice as long as broad.
Syn. Conferva Rothii. Turton. Si/st. N at. v. 6. 1806.
Dilliv. Conf. t. 73.
C. violacea. Roth. Catal. v. 1. 190. t. 4> .f 1.
first received a specimen of this beautiful little Conferva
from Mr. Robert Brown, Libr. L. Soc., who gathered it ip.
a limestone cave on the northern coast of the county of Antrim,
near Bally castle, in 1799, and who aptly named it
phoenicea. Dr. Turton however having published it by the
name of its first finder, the celebrated Roth, we readily adopt
that denomination, and the reference to Dr. Turton, from
Mr. Dillwyn’s work. The term violacea is preoccupied by
Hudson. Mr. Sowerby obtained the specimen in his plate
from the Rev. Hugh Davies, who gathered it on the northeast
coast of Anglesea, and who is the original discoverer of
the plant in Britain.
It grows in oblong patches, of a bright red, when dry
assuming more of a crimson or purplish cast. The filaments
are very fine, erect, crowded, half an inch or somewhat
more in height, divided in their lower part into distant
alternate branches, and in the upper into more crowded
ones, all the terminations of which are acute. The joints are
even, or but little swelling, about twice as long as broad.
We know nothing of the fructification.