Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/381

] lobes with a solitary bladder at the base of each; the colour is a dirty chocolate brown.

"On approaching Cockburn Island, the cliffs above are seen to be belted with yellow, which, as it were, streams down to the ocean, among the rocky débris. The colour was too pale to be caused by iron ochre, which it otherwise resembles; and this appearance was found to be entirely owing to the abundance of a species of lichen (Lecanora miniata) that prevails in the vicinity of the sea throughout the Antarctic Islands, and in other parts of the globe. It grows nowhere else in such profusion: a circumstance which may arise from its preference for animal matter: the penguin rookery of Cockburn Island, which taints the air by its effluvium, being, perhaps, peculiarly congenial to this lichen.

"Immediately on landing, one plant, and only one, is easily discernible, the Ulva crispa. Like the Lecanora, it abounds in the south, and vegetates upon or near decomposing organised substances. It consists of pale green membranous fronds, barely one fourth of an inch high, and crowded together in great numbers.

"The Mosses grow in the soil which is harboured in the fissures of rocks: they are excessively minute, the closest scrutiny being requisite to detect them. There were, as above mentioned, only five species: two of them bore unripe capsules, and all were confined to spots having a northern exposure, and even there they were so