CONFERVA scoparia.
Clustered Brown Conferva.
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga.
G en. Char. Seeds produced in round, solitary, closed
tubercles, projecting from the frond, but united
with it.
Spec. Char. Olive brown, hairy, much branched and
fasciculated. Ultimate divisions awlshaped, alternate.
Syn. Conferva scoparia. Linn. Sp, P t. 1635. H u d s.5 95 .
With. v. 4. 131. Hull. 3 3 1. L ightf. 981.
C. marina pennata. D ill, in R aii Syn. 59. Muse. 24.
t. 4. f . 23.
F r e q u e n t on the sea coast, growing under water upon
shells and pebbles, with which it is thrown up on the beach at
all seasons.
The colour of the whole plant is a dull olive, brown, when
old or dry verging towards a rusty hue. From a large hairy
root or base spring many stems, 3 to 6 .inches high, which
are cylindrical, clothed with small entangled jointed fibres, so
as to appear hairy, and much branched and subdivided in their
upper part. Their ultimate branches are clustered, somewhat
pectinated, the segments alternate, and tapering. Every branch
and segment is closely but not very conspicuously jointed, the
joints twice as broad as they are long,
In some specimens the tips of the youngest branches are
obtuse, a little swelled, seeming to contain a brown substance
in a pellucid membrane, and looking to the naked eye as if
they had been burnt. We dare not assert this to be the fructification,
which no botanist has hitherto described; but the same
appearance is observable on the Linnsean specimens, as well as
on those in our plate.