C O N F E R V A a lte rn a ts .
A lte rn a te Conferva.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algae.
Gen. Char. Seeds produced within the substance of
the capillary orjointed frond, or in closed tubercles
united with it.
Spec. Char. Variegated with brown and green. F ilaments
unbranched, slender ; join ts h a lf as long
again as broad, alternately pellucid and opaque,
here and there swelling.
Syn. Conferva alternata. Dillw. Syn. n. 2 2 . t. B.
Proliféra vesicata. Voucher. Conf. 13 2. t. 1 4 . / . 4 .
I S OT uncommon in fresh-water pools and ditches in the
spring. Mr. Borrer sent it from Sussex, observing that the
brown and the green varieties of Mr. Dillwyn are often seen
in different joints of the same filament. This gives the whole
mass a changeable or party-coloured appearance.
The filaments are loosely entangled in light floating tufts,
and are described as six or eight inches long, which is more
than we have met with. They are extremely slender, and
their coats perfectly pellucid. Each joint, nearly twice as
long as broad, has in the centre a green or brown opaque
mass, which in some of the joints either fails originally of
coming to perfection, or contracts and disappears sooner than
in others, and this difference takes place pretty exactly in an
alternate order. Every third or fourth joint, however, in
some filaments, is remarkably swelled, into a globular form,
seemingly from the extraordinary turgescence of its green or
brown contents, almost as in C. injiata, t. 1670.