C O N F E R V A urceolata.
P itch e r -fru ited Compound Conferva.
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga.
G e n . C h a r . Seeds produced within the substance of
the capillary or jointed frond, or in closed tubercles
united with it.
S p e c . C h a r . Dark red brown, capillary, bushy,
and much b ran ch ed ; the ultimate divisions short
and spreading. Lower joints much longer, u pper
shorter, than broad, compound, o f few tubes.
F ru it pitcher-shaped.
S y n . Conferva urceolata. Dillw. Syn. n. 156. t. G.
C. nigrescens. Huds. 6 0 2 ?
CjtATHERED on the Scarborough beach by Sir Thomas
Frankland, bart., who assures us it is the real C. nigrescens
of Hudson, our t. 1717 not being such. To this we have
nothing to object, and should readily have altered that name,
had not Mr. Dillwyn adopted it, at the same time giving so
excellent an appellation to the present Conferva, from a manuscript
of Lightfoot’s, apparently taken from the papers of
Solander and Ellis, who laboured together in the study of sea
plants.
The species before us has much of the habit of C.fucoides,
t. 1743, being very slender and bushy, but its joints are composed
of much fewer parallel tubes, and the lower ones are
considerably longer than the upper. When dry the whole
plant is black, but we find it recover its original deep reddish
brown by moisture. The capsules are lateral, small, sessile,
finely dotted, globular with a sort of neck, like a pitcher.