2S26 (Fig. 1.).
SCYTONEMA turfaceum.
Peat Scylonema.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algae.
Gen. Char. Thread continuous, coriaceous, naked
(not mucous), filled with annulifonn or polymorphous
transverse parallel sporangia.
Spec. Char. Thread abbreviated proliferous golden
yellow-brown, obtuse : sporangia at length green.
Syn. Dematium turfaceum. Pers. Myc. Eur. v. 1.
68. Lh. Sp. PL 1. 134.
O n heath, sphagnum, &c., on the Pentland Hills, found
by Dr. Greville. Forming a short brownish shaggy stratum,
overrunning the plants on which it grows. Threads
suberect, giving out in a proliferous manner short very obtuse
branches of a beautiful golden yellow-brown. Two
sometimes spring from the same point. The walls of the
threads are very thick. Sporangia annuliform, green,
composed of a compact grumous mass, or divided, especially
in the older threads, into a single row of distinct
oblong granules.
This very beautiful Alga was communicated by Dr.
Greville to Sir W. J . Hooker, in whose Herbarium it is
marked by M. Klotzsch Dematium turfaceum, Lk . which
there is every reason to believe is correct. Link appears
to have been acquainted with the plant merely from the
short notice of it by Persoon in the Mycologia Ewopcea.
Fries tells us expressly, Syst. Myc. v. 2. p. 603. ad not., that