CONFERVA nitida.
Beep-g reen Combined Conferva.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algos,
G en. Char. Seeds produced within the substance of
the capillary or jointed frond, or in closed tuber-
cles united with it.
Spec. Char. Deep shining green. Filaments unbranched,
slender, slippery. Joints rather longer
than broad, becoming laterally conjugated. Grains
in several close spiral lines.
Syn. Conferva nitida. F l. Dan. t. 8 1 9 . Dillw. Conf.
t. 4 . ƒ. C. Syn. 49. n. 34.
C. ju g a lis . F l. Dan. t. 8 8 3 .
Conjugata princeps. Vauch. Conf. 6 4 . t. 4. Dillw.
C o m m o n in ponds, according to Mr. W. Borrer, from
whom we received it early in August.
The whole composes dense masses of a very dark though
shining green, which are slippery to the touch, as usualln
this conjugated tribe. The filaments are originally separate,
simple, very slender, even, consisting of cylindrical joints,
whose length is seldom so much as twice their diameter, and
which are each occupied internally by about eight spiral lines
of green granular matter, that gives its colour to the otherwise
white and pellucid plant. In process of time the joints of parallel
filaments become conjoined by laterally protruding tubes,
through which the green contents of one joint are conveyed to
its associated neighbour, and a dense elliptical green mass, sup-
posed to consist of the seeds, is seen in the centre of the receiving
joint, the parallel one remaining empty and transparent
; which latter circumstance is, as Mr. Borrer justly remarks,
not sufficiently attended to in our t. 1656, where another
of these curious species is delineated. Sometimes it seems
this transfusion fails, and the joints which do not meet with any
associate become internally brown, and probably decayed.
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