Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/378

 350 NEW MARINE ALG^. phyllis. The colour is a dark purplish red, or in older plants blackish red. The height in my specimen does not exceed 3 in. 2. Ptilophora Beckeri, n. sp., radice fibrosa, fronde 1-1^- pedali, mox supra basin umbeliatim divisa, ramis elongatis bis terve irregulariter pinnatis ; costa tenui, infra apicem evanescente percurso; pinnulis ultimis in statu juniori obtuse dentatis, in adultiori dentibus in ligulis angustissimis ad semi-unciam longis productis, cystocarpiis ovalibus in apice ligulorum evolutis. Hab. The Kowie, Dv, H. Becker, July, 1892. This plant was received from Dr. Becker under the name of Ptilophora prolifera, Harv. It bears a considerable resemblance to Pterocladia lucida, and was for some time passed over by me as that plant. On examining it more closely, I noticed the cystocarps were bilocular, and that the structure of the frond consisted of four layers of cells and a central fibrous layer, followed by a layer of rounded cells, then a thinner layer of fibrous cells, and finally a layer of minute cortical cells, all exactly similar to those occurring in P. prolifera. But from that species it differs entirely in the absence of squamose proliferations on the surface of the frond, and in the slender but more pronounced nerve in the ramuli. It comes very near to a species described by Dr. J. G. Agardh {Till Algernes, iv. 79) under the name of Ptilophora jnnnatijida ; but in this species, of which a specimen exists in the herbarium at Kew, the cystocarps occupy the middle of the ligules terminating the teeth, and the ligules are themselves very much shorter, not ex- ceeding I in. in length. Dr. Agardh, who has seen my specimens, is of opinion that the two species are distinct. These two species should in my opinion form, together with a Japanese plant described by Okamura {Hedwigia, xxxiii. 190, t. x.) under the name of Gelidium subcostatum, a separate section of die genus Ptiloj^hora, characterized by the flattened frond without proliferations on the surface. The Japanese plant shows exactly the same structure of four layers in the frond, but the tetrasporic sori occupy the whole of the teeth of an abbreviated pinnule ; the root is fibrous ; the plant branches in the same umbellate manner as in P. Beckeri^ at about an inch above the base, but the branches are shorter and more crowded, and the teeth do not elongate into ligules. The habit and structure of the plant nevertheless ally it to Ptilophora rather than to Gelidium, in which I have not seen the infra-cortical fibrous layer characteristic of Ptilop)hora. 3. Erythroclonium corallinum, nom. nov., planta denuo de- scripta {Gastridium corallinum Suhr in Flora, xix. 344, t. iv. fig. 31 (1836), fronde caespitosa, unciali, fere tota stricturis articulata, ad stricturas irregulariter dichotoma, ramis paucis subcorymbosis, articulis ellipticis, obovatis, terminalibus brevioribus diametro duplo-longioribus, infimis subcylindricis diametro 4-6 longioribus, sphserosporis zonatis sparsis. Hab. The Kowie, Dr. H. Becker, 1885. This small species bears a considerable resemblance to young plants of Chylocladia articulata^ but is very sparingly branched, and does not exceed an inch in height. The specimens found by Suh