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MARINE BOTANY 


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“ Come hither, eae 
Nor fear lest danger lurks; but firmly stand, 
And Jook adown the waters. Beauteous plants | Pex: 
Quiver and sparkle; and methinks bright hues, = 
E'en suchas Iris flings on watery floors, 
Are seen among them.” 


_— 


be age we ee 
‘ 


a 


PREFACE. 


Amone the ever-alluring and delightful studies of 
Nature, the. pursuit of Marine Botany is worthy of 
holding a higher place than it has yet attained. It is 
entitled to rank, not merely as a science appreciated 
only by the few, but to be rendered subservient to the 
moral and intellectual culture of the many. True, it 
is a study from which a great proportion of mankind 
must be practically excluded, by their remote residence 
from the shores upon which the treasures of the mighty 
ocean are tobe found; but in these times, when, upon 
the approach of the summer months, tens of thousands 
quit the smoky confines of sunless towns and cities, to 
breathe the bracing air and bask in the unbroken 
sunshine of the sea-coast, there is ample opportunity 
for gratifying the love of Nature by turning to those 
of her attractive works which to many, in ordinary 


circumstances, are shut out from investigation. 


In this Hanpy Book we have devoted a willing 


service to the thousands who, in coming summers, 


1V PREFACE. 


may go out to the coasts of their native land, to watch 
the silvery waves dancing upon the rocky or the 
pebbled shores, and to gather the gems which these 
bright waves are ever casting at the feet of the 
beholder, or leaving exposed to the view, as in their 
diurnal courses they recede from the higher boundary 


of their approach. 


To the careless observer there is nothing attractive 
in the tangled lines of “ sea-weeds”’ which are seen 
rolling about under the lashing of the white surf: but 
let such a person once ‘stoop to conquer” the fault 
of indifference, and he will be rewarded by the 
discovery of gems which, the more he scrutinises, the 
more he will admire; and it is the purpose of our 
book to lead him on from step to step in a pleasing 
pursuit, until at last he will wonder that he has so 
long neglected the treasures which lay inviting his 


inspection. 


HANDY BOOK 
OF 


MARINE BOTANY. 


CHAPTER I. 


By botanists, these sea-weeds are termed Alg@; a name 
which is applied to a large group of flowerless plants, and 
which form the vegetable kingdom of the waters. ‘‘ The 
sea, in no climate from the Poles to the Equator, is altogether 
free from them, though they abound on some shores much 
more than on others. Species abound likewise in fresh 
water, whether running or stagnant, and in mineral springs. 
The strongly impregnated sulphureous streams of Italy, 
the eternal snows of the Alps and arctic regions, and the 
boiling springs of Iceland, have each their peculiar species; 
and even chemical solutions, if long kept, produce Alge. 
Very few, comparatively, inhabit stations which are not 
submerged, or exposed to the constant dripping of water ; 
and, in all situations where they are found, great dampness, 
at least, is necessary to their production.” 

One great advantage in the study of the marine Algz is, 
that they may be laid out upon paper and dried, in which 
state of preservation they will display, with beautiful effect, 
their various peculiarities of structure and colour. They 
may, when thus preserved, be placed into books, and become 
admirably adapted for the drawing-room or parlour table, 
and when arranged, with their proper names and the dates 
and situations where they were found annexed to them, 
they serve as most pleasing memorials of ‘‘ moments of 
sweetness past,”’ upon which the fond memory may delight 
to dwell. We encourage, therefore, all who may peruse this 
little work, and who may have opportunity of collecting 


a a 


2 HANDY BOOK OF 


the marine Algz, to commence this pleasing pursuit at once, 
or at their earliest convenience, and to make the recreation 
of collecting specimens collateral with their study of them. 
We are confident that they will be greatly delighted 
as they proceed; and to make the pursuit the more agreeable, 
we shall do our very best to strip it of the chief difficulties 
by which it has hitherto been beset. It is our intention to 
give the classical names and arrangement of all the series, 
families, and individuals, of the Alge; to give, as well as 
the classical, the familiar names; to intimate, also, the 
pronunciation of the Latin names employed ; to furnish an 
engraved illustration of one or more individuals of each 
family ; and to supply such other information as our own 
experience has taught us to consider most desirable for the 
beginner, and which, from the paucity and dearness of 
works upon this subject, cannot easily be obtained elsewhere. 

In Harvey’s Manual (from which we have already quoted), 
we are informed that the Algz, growing in the depths of 
the great Pacific Ocean, have stems which exceed in length 
(though not in diameter) the trunk of the tallest forest 
trees ; and others have leaves that rival in expansion those 
of the palm. Some are simple globules and spheres, con- 
sisting of a single cellule, a little bag of tissue filled with 
colouring matter; some are mere strings of such cellules, 
cohering by the ends; others, a little more perfect, exhibit 
the appearance of branched threads; in others, again, the 
branches and threads are compound, consisting of several 
such threads joined together; and in others the tissue 
expands into broad flat fronds (leaves). 

In colour, the Alge exhibit three principal varieties, 
with, of course, numerous intermediate shades, namely, 
grass-green, olivaceous, and red. ‘The grass-green is 
characteristic of those found in fresh water, or in very 
shallow parts of the sea along the shores, and generally 
above the half-tide level, and is rarely seen in those which 
grow at any great depth. Dut to this rule there are excep= 


MARINE BOTANY. 3 


tions. The olivaceous brown, or olive-green, is almost 
entirely confined to marine species, and is, in the main, 
characteristic of those that grow at half-tide level, becoming 
less frequent towards low-water mark; but it frequently 
occurs also at greater depths, in which case it is very dark, 
and passes to brown, or almost black. The red, also, is almost 
exclusively marine, and reaches its maximum in deep water. 
It is rarely very pure much within the range of extreme 
low-water mark, higher than which many of the more deli- 
cate species will not vegetate; and those that do exist, 
degenerate in form as well as in colour, as they recede from 
it. The green species are of the simplest structure. The 
olivaceous are the most perfect and compound, and reach 
the largest size ; and the red form a group distinguished no 
less by the beauty and delicacy of their tissue, than by 
producing seeds under two forms, thus possessing what is 
called double fructification. 

In the wise economy of nature, the Alge are employed to 
purify the waters, as plants purify the air; they also serve 
as food and shelter for various species of marine animals, 
which in their turn become food for larger animals, and 
for man. They are also employed for manure, for which 
use they are, in many parts, and especially on the coasts of 
Ireland, considered of the utmost importance. Some kinds 
of Alge have been employed as food for man; others as 
medicines ; and from one of the tribes Kelp is obtained—an 
article used in the manufacture of glass and soap. It is 
probable that these vegetables are capable of being applied 
to many useful purposes yet undiscovered ; and the study of 
Marine Botany may tend to enhance their value. 


DIRECTIONS FOR COLLECTING AND LAYING OUT SEA-WEEDS. 


It must be borne in mind, that if exposed to the sun or 
rain, the plants, as a general rule, soon change colour. The 
gleaner should, therefore, always seek for them at low tidg, 


” ©y fete 
“se Tes 


4 HANDY BOOK OF 


in pools among the rocks, where the finest specimens may 
be found. It should be noticed whether they were found 
growing from, or attached to the rocks, or whether they 
were accidentally left there by the falling tide. Specimens 
which are found attached to the rocks will almost invariably 
be the most perfect; and care should be taken to obtain thé 
entire plant, raising with it the tendrils by which it holds 
to the stone. When gathered, the sooner they are laid out 
the better. Miss Gifford* gives the following instructions: 
—‘‘ First wash the sea-weed in fresh water,t then take a 
plate, or dish [the larger the better]; cut your paper to the 
size required, place it in the plate with fresh water, and 
spread out the plant with a good-size camel-hair pencil in 
a natural form (picking out with the pin gives the sea-weed 
an unnatural appearance, and destroys the characteristic 
fall of the branches, which should be carefully avoided) ; 
then gently raise the paper with the specimen out of the 
water, placing it in a slanting position for a few moments, 
so as to allow the superabundant water to run off; after 
which place it in the press. The press is made with either 
three pieces of board or pasteboard. Lay on the first board 
two sheets of blotting-paper; on that lay your specimens ; 
place straight and smooth over them a piece of old muslin, 
fine cambric, or linen; then some more blotting-paper, and 
place another board on the top of that, and continue in the 
same way. The blotting-paper and the muslin should be 
carefully removed and dried every day, and then replaced ; 
at the same time those specimens that are sufficiently dried 
may be taken away. Nothing now remains but to write on 
each the name, date, and locality. You can either gum the 
specimens in a scrap-book, or fix them in, as drawings are 


* “The Marine Botanist.”’ 

+ Our own experience leads us to believe that clean salt-water, 
where this can be obtained, is much the best. We have found that 
the plants lose colour by being immersed in fresh water, even for a 
short time. Water and salt is better than fresh water. 


MARINE BOTANY. 7) 


often fastened, by making four slits in the page, and insert- 
ing each corner. This is by far the best plan, as it admits 
of their removal, without injury to the page, at any future 
period, if it be required either to insert better specimens, or 
intermediate species. Some of the larger Alge will not 
adhere to the paper, and consequently require gumming. 
The following method of preserving them will be found 
one of the best:—‘‘ After well cleaning and pressing, 
brush the coarser kinds of Alge over with spirits 
of turpentine, in which two or three small lumps of 
gum mastic have been dissolved, by shaking in a warm 
place ; two-thirds of a small phial is the proper proportion, 
and this will make the specimens retain a fresh appearance.” 


See ae 


CHAPTER II. 


To the shores! where the bright green sea 
Its snowy spray is throwing. 

Down by the mystic-looking caves, 
Where healthful winds are blowing. 

There, cull the treasures of the deep, 
Where gems of pearly beauty lie, 

Where sea-birds their carousals keep, 
Chiding the stranger wand’ring by. 


The sea! the sea! its lonely shore, 
The billows crested white ; 

The clouds that flit its bosom o’er, 
Or sun-beams dancing bright: 

The breakers bursting on the strand 
In thunders on the ear: 

The frowning cliff, the silvery sand, 
Each, all, to me are dear. 


‘‘TuHE sea! the sea! the deep proud sea!” what trea- 
sures are concealed in its fathomless recesses! Who, 
in walking beside its shores, does not recall to mind the 


6 HANDY BOOK OF 


awe and wonder with which he first beheld the onward 
rushing of giant billows, till suddenly subsiding at his feet 
they spread upon the sand those beautiful sea-weeds which 
children often seize in their small hands, dripping with the 
brine of the ocean, and run joyfully to show their com- 
panions ! 

There is a freshness in ocean scenery which has few 
parallels except in mountainous countries. There is no 
sameness on the surface of the deep, for no two billows are 
alike either in form or hue; and yet their power to delight 
the mind consists in unity, and in a kind of fellowship with 
the elements of air and light by which they are surrounded. 
Hence the infinite variety of varying shadows cast by rapid 
clouds while speeding through the heavens; the restless 
heaving of the waves, with their crests of foam sparkling on. 
the sunbeams; their majesty when tempests are abroad ; 
their calm and gentle swell when zephyrs are sporting on 
the deep. But how much is the effect heightened, and what 
subjects of deep interest are awakened in the mind, when 
the whole is regarded with reference to that vegetable 
world which lies deep beneath the billows, specimens of 
which the waves continually bring up, as if commissioned 
to make known the wonders of creation in places inacces- 
sible to man. 

Let us, then, go forth, whether as children or young 
people, or those to whom Marine Botany is familiar, and 
collect seaweeds on the shore. Cicero left us an example 
which we may do well to emulate. He draws a delightful 
picture of the pleasures derived from such pursuits by 
Scipio and Leelius at Laurentum, when, having relinquished 
for a time the cares attendant on public life, they amused 
themselves with observing the various productions that 
were cast by waves upon the sand. 

But first, as needful for an enlarged view of this inte- 
resting subject, it will be right to speak concerning the 
local appropriation of different species, for such appropria- 


MARINE BOTANY. 7 


tion equally exists beneath the waters as on land. Fewer 
divisions undoubtedly there are, because sea plants, unlike 
those of terrestrial rock or soil, are not liable to be affected 
by atmospheric changes; the sun does not scorch them 
during summer, nor may the frosts of winter depress their 
vital energy; and hence it happens that sea-weeds are 
more uniformly dispersed. 

The vast extent of ocean greatly facilitates such a general 
dispersion. Land plants are continually impeded in their 
progress by intervening seas, or rivers; marine plants 
rarely by land barriers, although the number of tribes into 
which marine botanists have divided the family of Algz are 
very numerous, and their watery stations singularly varied. 
Those stations, as far as the researches of indefatigable 
naturalists extend, have each an especial reference to the 
character and mode of growth pertaining to aquatic plants, 
or to the necessities of such marine animals or shell-fish as 
harbour among them. Numerous species remain stationary, 
growing on the stony bed of ocean, or clinging to the rocks 
—others become attached to the shells of crustaceous or 
testaceous wanderers, and travel with them—others, again, 
float hither and thither, having no abiding-place. 


** Hung from the rock, on ocean’s foam to sail, 
Where’er the surge may sweep, the tempest’s breath prevail.” 


Such plants range through various geographical regions 
of aquatic floras, being found deposited on the shores of 
countries separated by the “liquid weight of half the 
globe,” as, for example, those of Europe and the United 
States; of Cape Horn and of Van Diemen’s Land. Among 
species strictly antarctic, Dr. Hooker identified not less than 
a fifth-part of the whole species common to the British seas. 
This eminent naturalist suggested, that cold currents, which 
prevail from Cape Horn to the Equator, and are there met 
by other streams of similar temperature, may, by their 
direct influence, as well as temperature, facilitate the pro- 


8 HANDY BOOK OF 


gress of antarctic species to the Arctic Ocean, and that the 
migration of different marine animals from south to north 
may have been produced by the same cause. 

Botanists assign ten separate provinces to the family of 
Algze :— 

1st. The North Circumpolar, extending from lat. 60 N. 
to the Pole: and including that wild and restless sweep of 
ocean which embosoms Iceland and Spitzbergen, and laves 
the coast of Norway and Lapland, of Nova Zembla and 
Greenland, with such as form the northern boundaries of 
the Russian empire—an ocean hoary at one season of the 
year with mountains of floating ice, that reflect the dazzling 
beams of the sun, or else exhibit the appearance of innu- 
merable spangles flying off from their wavy surface; and 
where, during winter, the waves are congealed towards the 
Pole into a solid mass. 

2nd. The North Atlantic, or the region of Fucus proper, 
and Delesserie. This wide region extends from lat. 40 N. 
to lat. 60 N.; it comprises Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, 
with the shores of cold and pitiless Labrador, and the ex- 
treme point of Cape Farewell. Voyagers speak of a remark- 
able accumulation of that species of sea-weed generally 
known as the Gulf-weed, or Sargassum, which occurs on 
either side of the Equator. Columbus, when steering due 
west, nearly in the same latitude as the Canary Islands, 
and about 400 leagues distant, observed a similar pheno- 
menon: he found the sea so covered with weeds that it 
resembled a meadow of vast extent, and, in some places, 
such was their strength and number as to retard the motion 
of the vessels. 

Rennell, to whom we are indebted for much valuable in- 
formation relative to the North Atlantic Ocean, speaks of the 
Gulf Stream as producing a remarkable effect on its climate, 
consequently, on its aquatic flora. This most powerful of 
known currents has its source in the Gulf of Mexico, which, 
like the Mediterranean Sea, and such as are encompassed 


MARINE BOTANY. 9 


with land in temperate or low latitudes, is warmer than the 
wide ocean in similar parallels. Hence, during summer, 
the temperature of the Mexican Sea, according to the same 
observer, is 86 deg. Fahr., or at least 8 deg. above that of 
the Atlantic. From this great reservoir, or cauldron, of 
warm water, a constant current pours forth through the 
Straits of Bahama, at the rate of three or four miles an 
hour, crossing the ocean in a north-easterly direction, and 
skirting the great bank of Newfoundland, where it still 
retains a temperature of 8 deg. above that of the watery 
plain through which it flows. Onward goes that current, 
‘with the same unerring precision, following a prescribed 
course, and swerving neither to the right nor left for nearly 
_ three thousand geographical miles, till having reached the 
Azores in about seventy-eight days from its source in the 
Gulf or Sea of Mexico, it sometimes extends its progress a 
thousand miles further, to the Bay of Biscay, retaining an 
excess of 5 deg. above the mean temperature of that sea 
Nor less curious is the fact, that this oceanic river reaches 
the Bay of Biscay in the months of November and January, 
and tends, most probably, to moderate the cold of winter in 
countries on the west of Europe.* 

Hooker traced the Fucus nodosus and Fucus serratus on 
the northern edge of this vast current, from lat. 36, to Eng- 
land. At that point also, in the centre of the North Atlantic, 
between the parallels of 33 deg. and 35 deg., which Rennell 
terms the recipient of its heated waters, spreads the sargosso, 
sargassum, bacciferum, in incredible profusion. Voyagers 
relate that it is seen floating and sparkling in the sun-beams, 
and presenting an exquisite variety of mingling hues. 

3rd. The region of the Mediterranean, which may also 
be regarded as a sub-region of the 4th, or warmer temperate 
zone of the Atlantic, between lat. 23 N. and Jat. 40 N, 


* Rennell on Currents. 


10 HANDY BOOK OF 


This temperate region is sprinkled over with the thickly- 
scattered isles of Greece, and many a classic spot, 


‘Which seen from fair Colonna’s height, 
Makes glad the heart that hails the sight, 
And lends to loneliness delight, 

Where mildly dimpling ocean’s cheek, 
Reflects the tints of many a peak 
Caught by the laughing tides that lave 
These Edens of the eastern wave.” 


5th. The Tropical Atlantic, in which sargassum, rhodo- 
mela, corrallinea, and siphinea abound. 

6th. The South Atlantic, that vast extent of ocean which 
extends from the coasts of South America to those of Africa. 
In this division the fueus reappears. Throughout its might 
of waters passes also that portion of the Gulf Stream which 
Rennell designates as the South Atlantic current, varying 
in its rapid course of twenty-five to seventy-nine miles 
daily, in its breadth from one hundred and sixty to four 
hundred and fifty miles, the length of its whole course being 
one thousand miles, till lost in the Caribbean Sea. <A current 
so vast and deep, that the same accurate observer charac- 
terizes it as an oceanic river, having a rapidity exceeding 
that of the largest navigable rivers; and so deep as to be 
occasionally turned aside by subaqueous banks or mountains, 
which yet do not rise within forty or fifty, or even one 
hundred, fathoms of the surface. 

And yet, however botanically divided into different 
regions, with their dissimilar floras, one singular fact per- 
tains to the Atlantic—namely, the absence of coral reefs, 
either on the west coasts of Africa, or among the islands of 
the Gulf of Guinea, around St. Helena, or Ascension, Cape 
Verde, or St. Paul’s. With the solitary exception of Ber- 
muda, there is not a single coral reef in the central expanse 
of the Atlantic, although some portion of its waters, as at 
Ascension, are charged to excess with calcareous matter. 


MARINE BOTANY. 1l 


This curious fact is probably owing to the absence of fit 
stations for the reef-building polypifers; other organic 
beings in those regions obtaining, in the great struggle for 
existence, a mastery over them.* 

7th. The Antarctic American, comprehending from Chili 
to Cape Horn, the Falkland Islands, and thence round the 
world south of lat. 50 8. 

8th. The Australian and New Zealand, of which the 
marine productions are equally peculiar with such as vary 
the hills and plains of those recently-discovered countries, 

9th. The Indian Ocean and Red Sea, with their infinite 
variety of coral reefs and islands, 

10th. The Chinese and Japanese seas, in addition to 
which, there are yet a few not well defined, and which 
especially pertain to the Pacific Ocean. 

Such are the ten divisions into which botanists have 
divided the world of waters, each with its peculiar growth 
of Alge; but while regarding this interesting portion of 
our subject, it must ever be borne in mind that in subaqueous, 
equally with terrestrial plants, the distinctiveness between 
the provinces relates strictly to species, and not to forms. 
Nor less worthy of observation is the recently-established 
fact, that, with regard to the numerical preponderance of 
certain forms and peculiarities of internal structure, a 


marked agreement is generally perceptible in the vegetable 


productions of aqueous provinces, placed in corresponding 
latitudes and under similar physical circumstances, however 
remote their position. Sea-weeds on the shores of the 
Brazils, Equinoctial Africa, and India, present innumerable 
points of analogy. Few species, however, of subaqueous 
plants are common to the seas of Van Diemen’s Land, New 
Zealand, and Fuegia, but a great number of genera, and 
among these, some few confined to the above-mentioned 
regions of the southern hemisphere, are severally repre- 


* Principles of Geology, by Charles Leyell, 


12 MANDY BOOK OF 


sented in distant seas by a single species. Naturalists 
further observe that such plants as seem indigenous 
throughout the waters of the southern temperate regions, as 
well as those of the Antarctic, possess each a representative 
of genera belonging to analogous climates in the opposite 
hemisphere, but that very few of the species are identical, 
unless belonging to families of universal diffusion. 

Were it possible to stand on the margin of some bold coast, 

and look down through the ocean, when spreading like a 
mirror in its beauty and serenity, what magnificent subjects 
for contemplation would be everywhere discerned. Take, 
for instance, the German Ocean, traversed by an enormous 
bank, which occupies a central position, and extends from 
the Frith of Forth in a north-easterly direction, to at least 
one hundred miles; while other banks or ridges stretch from 
Denmark and Jutland towards the north-west, and the 
Dogger-bank lifts its rugged surface, Alp-like, with deep 
ravines, covered by an aquatic flora. 
' The bed of ocean everywhere presents an equal variety of 
rocks and hollows, yet varying in their character and_pro- 
ductions. Algz, emulating in height the most stately forest 
trees, overshadow the watery valleys of the vast Pacific. 
Where the sea is calm, beautiful sea-weeds of the most 
delicate hue and colour grow luxuriantly like meadow-gyrass ; 
where, on the contrary, the shores are rocky, and covered 
with imipetuous waves, their natural productions are often 
parasitic, and fix themselves among the stones with a 
tenacious grasp. 

To an eye that could embrace the abyss of ocean, scarcely 
might the vicissitudes of day and night, the motion of 
the stars, the glorious sun, or milder moon, seem more 
worthy of regard than the order that prevails beneath the 
world of waters. There the coral inseet works her wonders, 
subservient to laws that never change, and having pre- 
scribed limits over which she may not pass; and mighty 


rivers rushing from their channels to the sea, pour oyer — 


MARINE BOTANY, 13 


those plains and valleys which never reccive a ray of light, 
but through the medium of water, large supplies of pebbles, 
sand, or soil, adapted for the growth of dissimilar plants. 
Clear and bubbling streams rise from out the bed of ocean, 
while, beside them, crowd such floras as delight in their 
purity and freshness. And, punctual to their appointed 
season, come and go those ever-moving tides, which, like 
the winds of earth, have a mighty purpose to fulfil, a mi- 
nistry which the power of man can neither frustrate nor 
hasten. 


CHAPTER III 
MELANOSPERMEZ,.—~OLIVE-GREEN SERIES. 


Is there a quiet world that lies beneath 

The might of waters, sounding, moving ever ; 

Or rough with storms, or thundering on the shore 
With deaf’ning clamour? Yes, a quiet world 

Doth lie beneath, with groves, and vales, and streams, 
And living creatures, each with haunt and home, 

As best befits it. 


MaRInE Botany peoples the wild sea-shore, and sings to 
me strange histories and adventures; even the smallest sea- 
weed which the waves have brought from out its ocean-bed 
‘whispers concerning depths which no human eye has seen, 
nor the boldest adventurer ever trod. Plants, such as grow 
beside our paths, have their own brief histories; memorials 
too are they, ofttimes, of days long past, associated with old 
times, and men whose stern adventures formed an era in 
their fatherland: but such is not the case with those of 
which we speak. The brine of ocean is on their dripping 
leaves; no shadows rest on them from ancestral trees, way- 


14 HANDY BOOK OF 


ing over lost homes or graves; nor yet the shadows of 
crowding houses, where life and death alternate as years 
pass on. Shadows, indeed, they have, such as clouds may 
shed when speeding through the heavens, or hurrying 
billows fling in passing—but these are beautiful. 

The Fucus nodosus, largest of British Algw, speaks to me 
of tempest-driven mariners, who, having kindled a fire on 
the sands of Beeotia, with sea-weeds cast by the waves on 
shore, found among the extinguished embers a strange sub- 
stance, which, in after years, opened to the naturalist a 
miniature world, populous and full of wonders as that by 
which we are surrounded—a substance which assists the 
astronomer in discovering new suns and systems, and num-_ 
bering the stars of the milky way; or, in its most simple 
and direct appropriation, enables the inhabitant of Britain 
to cultivate exotic fruits and flowers. 

Yet, such is the result of that accidental circumstance ; 
and kelp, manufactured from the Fucus nodosus and Canali- 
culatus, with others of their kind, forms an invaluable in- 
gredient in making glass. Observe that group of marine 
plants growing on tide-washed rocks, and what do you see 
in them but luxuriant developments of vegetable forms 
—the first, especially, with ample fronds of dull olive-green, 
tastefully contrasted with greenish-yellow receptacles, sup- 
ported on slender stalks, each receptacle filled with a gela- 
tinous substance, and traversed by a net-work of jointed 
fibres. 

Chemistry reveals that those wild sea-plants contain carbo- 
nate of soda, mixed with sulphate and muriate of the same 
alkali, and combinations of iodine. History records that 
scarcely a hundred years have passed since plants of the same 
kind were left unnoticed, tillan enterprising individual taught 
his countrymen to prepare them for purposes of commerce. 
Butsome there were who, wedded to old habits, protested that 
their ancestors had never thus employed them; and when 
kiins were erected, and people induced by high wages te 


MARINE BOTANY. 15 


collect and burn the sea-weeds, clamours were succeeded by 
violent opposition, till at length it became necessary that 
officers of justice should be sent to protect the workmen. 
Trials ensued, and advocates pleaded gravely that the suffo- 
eating smoke produced by burning sea-weeds would destroy 
the sheep and cattle, and drive away the fish. Yet, still the 
work progressed, and estates well bordered with sea-weeds 
increased so much in value, that, where the plants did not 
grow naturally, attempts were made to cultivate them, by 
covering the sandy bay with large stones. 

Whoistherethat does not often vividly remember the season 
of hay-making amid the din and stir of thronged streets, 
or on far-off shores? With equal vividness the native of 
the Orkneys recalls to mind the time of cutting weeds on his 
own bold coast, even if his lot be cast in regions where the 
drifting sea-weed has alone aught in common with the 
vegetable productions of a stranger clime. Imagine one of 
those wild spots where the restless waves, having laid aside 
their fierceness, and hushed their loud clamours, sport 
merrily among the rocks, rippling and sparkling, and tossing 
their crests of broken foam; now covering the meadows of 
sea-weeds, and again receding, till the dripping fronds, 
shaken by the breeze of ocean, reflect innumerable prismatic 
colours. Men are there, who step from stone to stone among 
the weeds, and lay them low—as mowers the ripe grass: 
women, too, who collect them in bundles; and children, all 
glee and gossip, who joyfully aid their parents, and pick up 
such straggling branches as are left upon the sand. The 
bundles are then speedily spread abroad, and left to dry in 
the sun and wind, after which they are gathered into heap- 
like windeocks in meadows, during the season of hay har- 
vest; and when autumn comes, they are thrown into pits 
dug along the shore, and being set on fire, burn gradually, 
till reduced to hard dark-coloured cakes, in which state they 
are sent to market. 

Nor less valuable are deposits of such kinds of fuer, when 


16 HANDY BOOK OF 


cast by the waves upon the shore in places where as yet the 
plants have not begun to vegetate, or the bordering inhabit- 
ants would be unable to appropriate them ;—harvest of the 
deep are they, anxiously expected, and attended to with 
equal care as those of land. In Ireland, especially, the poor 
almost entirely depend for manure on different kinds of fucz, 
which the waves deposit on their coasts in stormy weather. 
Scarcely has the storm subsided, and the towering billows 
abated somewhat of their fury, than troops of country-people 
assemble, some with cars and horses, some only with 
donkeys having panniers slung across their backs; others, 
too poor even to afford such humble assistance, eagerly 
collect whatever the sea has thrown within their reach, 
which having made into bundles, they often drag, with the 
aid of their wives and children, to a considerable distance. 
» Large and succulent kinds of fucz, with laminarie, are 
preferred for potato grounds; and when mixed with sea- 
sand they make excellent manure for different purposes. 
These plants, rooting themselves in places apparently the 
most ungenial, exhibit an energy of vegetable life which 
has no parallel on land. Years have passed since an 
hazardous attempt was made, near the entrance of the Frith 
of Forth, to erect a stone beacon on a low rock called the 
Carr. The rock was scarcely more than twenty feet broad 
and sixty long, and was covered with water, except at the 
lowest ebb of spring tide. But, despite the waves and winds 
that often contended for mastery, fucz of different kinds 
grew there luxuriantly, and presented a rich oasis of verdure 
when rendered visible by the withdrawing of the tide; the 
workmen, however, did not heed them, they were soon 
cleared away, and a considerable portion of their rough 
growing-place was made smooth with pickaxes, Early in 
November, the work was necessarily abandoned for the 
winter, at which time scarcely a weed was left, the greater 
portion having been destroyed, and such as remained were 
trampled on by the workmen, The rock, thus despoiled, 


MARINE BOTANY. 17 


was seen no more till May, when preparations being made 
for recommencing the stone beacon, it was found covered with 
large sea-weeds; specimens of the Fucus nodosus, the largest 
of British Algee, measured six feet in length, and some even 
exhibited capsules filled with ripening fruit! and, true to 
their native habitats, sea-tangles, with their cylindrical and 
solid stems, and fine clear olive fronds, had also taken root 
on the smooth and herbless portion of the rock. 

Five species of fuct are recognized as belonging to the 
British coasts, among which the JF. canaliculatus and 
F’, nodosus are best known; the one affecting rocky shores 
between high-water mark and half-tide level, and extending 
in its geographic range along the Atlantic coasts of Europe 
and North America, but which, unlike most of its con- 
gener, rarely covers wide spaces of rock, preferring to 
grow in scattered tufts or places where, at the recess of 
tide, the water rapidly drains off, evidently for the sake of 
exposure to the atmosphere during a considerable period 
daily; the other, similar in its ocean site to the canalicula- 
tus, is seen on submarine rocks and large boulder-stones 
from high-water mark to high-tide level. In both, their 
olive hue designates that they belong to the series melano- 
sperme—a colour which increases in depth as we approach 
the tropics, where it reaches the maximum of species, 
though not of individuals. 

Marine botanists, who desire to acquaint themselves with 
the structure of these singular productions, should obtain a 
branch of the F. nodosus or F. canaliculatus,*and having 
well soaked it in water or diluted muriatic acid, cut a thin 
- longitudinal slice, and examine it with a high magnifier, by 
the aid of which they will readily discover that the whole 
consists of four distinct parts. The central portion, corre- 
-sponding to the pith of plants, occupies a third of the 
diameter, and is composed of parallel fibres pressed together 
—or rather, of numerous cells forming one complete mass. 
Outside appears a less dense layer, of a paler hue, which 


i8 IANDY ROOK oF 


represents the wood; this layer consists of branched fibres, 
either horizontal or vertical, and inextricably laced together : 
and surrounding these is a denser and darker layer, analo- 
gous to bark in trees, and composed entirely of closely- 
packed, yet simple fibres. Outside, and forming the outer 
coat, is a very thin layer of small cells, loosely attached, and 
capable of being readily separated. 

The root of both species is a conical expansion, half an 
inch or more in diameter, by means of which they become 
firmly attached to marine rocks or stones washed by the 
tide. Some naturalists have doubted whether sea-weeds 
derive nourishment through the root; but this much is cer- 
tain, that they are materially affected by the soif on which 
they grow, for different rocks yield plants of the same 
family in greater or less perfection. 

The Fucus Mackazi, on the contrary, presents a singular 
deviation from this general habit; its large globular tufts 
invariably remain unattached, resting, apparently by their 
own weight, on mud or gravel, or among loose stones, 
where they flourish from year to year, and fruit abun- 
dantly. 

Every plant has its own history; and that of the Fucus 
serratus, which abounds on all the Atlantic coasts of Europe, 
serves to elucidate a curious fact connected with Marine 
Botany. This plant is a world of insect life ; and in order to 
observe its full development, collect in winter, or early in 
the spring, fresh specimens with orange-coloured receptacles, 
and leave them to dry partially. There will then exude, 
from the pores of each receptacle, drops of thick orange- 
coloured lisuid, which, on being moistened with salt water 
and placed under a microscope, are found to consist of 
innumerable antheridia, the homes of small yellow animal- 
cule, which quickly begin to liberate themselves, and con- 
sequently produce those strange motions which seem irre- 
concilable with vegetable life. 

Exotic species, such as the Sargassum vulgare and Bacet= 


MARINE BOTANY. 19 


jerum, are thrown occasionally on the shores of Britain. 
Superficial observers might consider them as native species, 
but such is not the case; they resemble in their casual 
visits those stranger birds, which, driven at distant periods 
by uncertain winds upon our coasts, have been incautiously 
admitted into the British Fauna. 

Thus journeying from afar, and telling of old times, these 
plants recall to mind the awe and wonder expressed by 
éarly navigators, when meeting with such vast accumula- 
tions as to resemble boundless floating meadows, green and 
pleasant to the eye, yet bringing sad thoughts of far-off 
scenes to those who anxiously and wearily voyaged through 
unknown seas. 

Strange and almost fearful must those oceanic meadows have 
appeared, in the midst of a tumbling and raging ocean, to 
men who perhaps had scarcely ever ventured beyond sound- 
ings. Even now, naturalists who are familiar with the 
wonderful developments of vegetable life in forms peculiar 
to the exotic regions, regard with astonishment those oases 
of verdure which Humboldt has described: the one extend- 
ing from the 25th to the 30th deg. of north latitude west- 
ward of Fayal; the other of the Bahamas. The locality of 
such banks, however, cannot be long depended on, as the 
plants of which they are composed float wherever they are 
impelled by winds or currents ; vessels, therefore, often pass 
through vast fields in the latitude already mentioned, whilst 
others, steering shortly after in the same course, meet with 
scarcely any. Somewhat capricicus, also, in the form which 
they assume, those ocean-fields at one time resemble vast 
savannahs, bounded only by the horizon—grcen, yet lonely, 
for neither bird nor insect relieves the unvaried verdure : at 
another, they resemble vast ridges, from ten to twenty feet 
broad, and seem to stretch across the sea. Such banks or 
fields are composed exclusively of the J. baccata, that wan- 
dering plant which has never yet been found except float- 
ing on the water; whereas the F, natans vulgare of Turner 


20 HANDY BOOK OF 


fixes its growth on marine rocks in tropical countries. 
Homeless, therefore, as regards its habitat, wandering from 
sea to sea, and visiting the shores of this and other coun- 
tries, the baccata is admirably adapted to a watery location. 
Its hollow pod-like receptacles seem designed to give 
buoyancy ; and the smallest branch readily becomes deve- 
loped into a perfect plant—hence the species are continually 
reproduced, and small branches, broken from the parent 
stem, not only increase in size, but throw off vigorous shoots 
in all directions. 

Agardhi, the celebrated naturalist, enumerates at least 
sixty-three species of sargasswm;*of these, fifty-four are 
either tropical or sub-tropical, and never extend beyond 
lat.42 deg, Specimens, therefore, of each, are found on the 
shores of the East Indies, China, Japan, or New Holland, 
Van Diemen’s Land, with those of the tropical Atlantic 
and the Cape of Good Hope. A few exotic species exist at 
some distance from the Equator; two are of uncertain 
origin, and eight are indigenous on widely separate 
coasts. 


CHAPTER IV. 


Come hither, 
Nor fear lest danger lurks; but firmly stand 
And look adown the waters. Beauteous plants 
Quiver and sparkle; and methinks bright hues, 
F’en such as Iris flings on watery floors, 
Are seen among them. 


BEAUTIFUL or curious in their ocean sites, grow innu- 
_ merable plants belonging to the series Delanospermee, 
among which the Fennel-like Cystoscira (Cystosetra feent- — 
culacea), common to the southern shores of England, and 
extending to Spain and the Mediterranean, presents a 


MARINE BOTANY. 91 


Striking instance of the effect produced by dissimilar loca- 
tions. When growing in deep water, beyond the reach of 
tides, it constitutes Fucus discors of marine botanists, 
especially if gathered during the summer months, at which 
season it is extremely luxuriant, with broad leaves and 
large air-vessels, while the same species, when developed in 
shallow tide-pools, and collected either late in autumn or in 
winter, is more branched, and has narrower leaves. Hence 
the name of Fucus abrotanifolius, or branched fucus: but 
on the depth of water, or difference of season, depend solely 
the distinguishing characters of both. 

Not less worthy of remark is the Granulated Cystoseira 
(C. granulata.) This shrub-like plant produces a beautiful 
effect in its rocky basin—seen at one time through clear 
sparkling water, at another left uncovered by the tide. 
Those who know little concerning its specific character, may 
yet readily distinguish the granulated cystoseira by the 
knob-like basis of its branches,and though growing in a 
scattered manner, it isoccasionally gregarious. Like others 
of the genus, its stems afford a welcome resting-place to 
various marine animals, with corallines and sponges, and 
parasitic sea-weeds, and are, in consequence, often covered 
with thick incrustations of animal life. Rare itis to find a 
clean-stemmed cystoseira ; and however annoying this may 
be to the collector of specimens, the admirer of nature, when 
looking into a clear tide-basin, under a favourable light, 
rejoices in the picturesque beauty produced by a cystoseira 
grove, of which the brilliant colours and starry forms re- 
semble clusters of flowers peeping from out the branches. 

Portland, with its rushing waves, and that wild beach on 
which the tumbling billows often resemble a belt of molten 
silver, reyeals among its sunken rocks the beautiful Heath- 
_ like Cystoseira (Cystosera ericoides), which reflects the most 
beautiful rainbow tints as its branches wave to and fro, 
This iridescent plant grows also on the coasts of Devonshire 
and Cornwall, and is remembered in connection with many 


a“ 


93 HANDY BOOK OF 


| dna ae 


a watery nook or beetling crag, where the harsh ory of the — 


lonely sea-bird is often heard above the dashing of the tide, 
or the murmuring sound of winds sweeping among the 
cliffs. 

With equal beauty glows the Peacock Padina, (Padina 
pavonia) on rocks in shallow pools. The general resem- 
blance of this curious plant to the expanded tail of a 
peacock has been noticed by authors, and when seen growing 
under water, the resemblance is peculiarly striking. Few 
plants are more curious in their structure, or more attractive 
to.the lovers of marine botany, for the filamentary fringes by 
which the outer portion of the strongly-rolled fronds are 
adorned separate the rays of light, and produce the most 
vivid rainbow tints; and with it is associated the curious 
fact, that although abounding in the tropical regions, and 
reaching its northern limits on the southern shores of Eng- 
land, no change whatever is discovered, either in the 
deepening of colour or luxuriance of vegetation. British 
specimens, though often exposed by the receding of the tide 
to every vicissitude of weather, are equally large and well 
coloured as those of warmer latitudes. 

The elegant, though solitary, Esculenta Alaria (dlaria 
esculenta) is rarely seen on our southern shores, though 
abundant on such as are washed by the northern Atlantic 
and Pacific Oceans. The roughest waters seem most favour- 
able to its growth, and hence its long and graceful fronds 
attain the greatest size, and most luxuriant development, 
in sites covered with rough waves and exposed to the 
heaviest storms. Such are its wild habitats on the shores 
of Scotland, and the north and west of Ireland, also Durham 
and Northumberland, Devonshire, and Cornwall. Those 
who visit the Land’s-End may find this hermit plant fring- 
ing precipitous rocks at low-water mark, beautiful in its 
assigned locality, and cheering oftimes the heart with 


thoughts of love and trust, amid the sternest solitudes of 


man, 


MARINE BOTANY. 23 


Young algologists who wish to obtain specimens of the 
Footed Sporochnus (Sporochnus pedunculatus) must seek for 
them by means of dredging. When thrown upon the coast, 
or entangled in the nets of fishermen, they are rarely perfect ; 
and yet none are more worthy of regard, being equally rare 
and beautiful. Happy the collector who, when the tide is 
out, may espy the branches of this clear olive-tinted plant 
waving in some deep rock basin! but how much is the 
pleasure of its discovery heightened, and what trains of 
soothing or solemn thoughts arise within the mind, when 
gathered from some memorial place ; perchance within sight 
of Preston-Pans, or beside the Frith of Forth, where the 
storming incidents of the one, or the wild magnificence of 
the other, become associated with this most delicate of 
oceanic Alge, 

_ Observe the Leafy Laminaria (Laminari@ phyllitis) vege- 
tating on rocks and stones, or in small coves left by the 
receding of the tide; as also its unassuming relative, the 
LI. fascia, or bundle-leaved, which rather affects sand- 
covered rocks. These plants afford, in their comparative 
_ minuteness, contr@sts to those of the same family which 
attain their full development in the exotic regions of the 
globe; and scarcely may the botanist, when looking into 
the clear calm waters that often cover their submarine 
habitats, recognize in gigantic specimens of the Finger-like 
Laminaria (Laminarie digitata) plants indigenous to Britain. 
Yet, palm-like in their mode of growth, and rising from out 
their rocky beds to a considerable elevation, they oftimes 
extend far as the eye can reach, and present an aggregate 
of verdure which equals in richness and luxuriance the 
magnificence of tropical vegetation. The Lessonia fuscr 
attains the height of twenty-five or thirty feet, with a tall 
and straight trunk, of considerable thickness, throwing out 
numerous branches, and covered with lancet-shaped leaves. 
The LZ. buccinolia, or trumpet-weed of the Cape of Good 
Hope, presents, on the contrary, a hollow stem, which the 


24 HANDY BOOK OF 


natives form into a kind of musical horn; and hence tra- 
vellers often hear the deep and sonorous sounds produced by 
these marine trumpets, when lingering on shores, beside 
which are seen the dripping and tufted heads of the JZ. 
buccinolia left uncovered by the tide, and glistening in the 
beams of morning. Adventurous boys assist one another in 
warily descending the slippery side of sea-cliffs till they 
come within reach of, a straggling branch, which they bear 
off in triumph; and soon another burst of wild melody 
responds from behind some jutting cliff, blending with the 
roar of ocean, and awakening images of far-off days when 
the credulous ear of childhood listened at every pause of 


rushing waters for the songs of sea-nymphs, warbling from — 


out the deep. 

But the larger of all known Alge, though comparatively 
slender, are different members of the brotherhood of Macro- 
sytes, of which the most common is the WZ, parafera. This 
graceful plant, emulating in slightness and in loftiness the 
arborescent bamboos and ferns described by Humboldt, 
occasionally rises to the height of fifteen hundred feet. The 
leaves are long and narrow, and at the base of each isa 
strong vessel filled with air, by aid of which the macrosytes 
is enabled to support its great length in a fluctuating element, 


for the stem at its greatest size is about the thickness of a _ 


finger, and the upper branches are as slender as packthread. 


The plants, therefore, require a peculiar organization; and - 


their roots, similar to those of forest trees, are strong and 
fibrous, and well adapted to take firm hold of the huge 
masses of broken rocks among which they grow. Proofs are 
they, both in growth and structure, that oceanic vegetation 
bears an obvious reference to its unstable and aqueous ele- 
ment—equally with that of land, to the elements by which 
it is surrounded. ‘The depths of ocean are, consequently, 
varied with submarine forests, beautiful in their diversity, 
as the primeval woods of recently-discovered lands, often of 
vast extent, and intermingled with breaks of lawn; and 


MARINE BOTANY. 25 


thickets which, growing low, and unvisited by storms, are 
slightly fixed to their growing-places by means of simple 
shield-like disks. The breaks of lawn, if such they may be 
termed, are covered with beautiful sea-weeds, of various 
forms and hues; and the trunks of the loftier tree-like 
species present extraneous tufts of vegetation, analogous to 
lichens and mosses. Parasitic sea-weeds, glossy and soft as 
silk, or formed of transparent membranes, also become 
attached to the stems and branches; some minute and ex- 
quisitely tinted, others of larger growth, but each the home 
or storehouse of joyous creatures, that glide in and out, and 
find both food and shelter in the places to which they are 
assigned. And as beneath the waters, so also, not unfre- 
quently, upon their surface, is the same diffusion of animated 
existence. 

Navigators in old times, when steering through those 
ocean meadows, concerning which Columbus spoke in his 
voyage of discovery, saw in them only vast extents of ver- 
dure; but men belonging to the days in which we live, 
when the light of science continually discovers new subjects 
for instruction, find that they are tenanted by numerous 
living creatures. Nor is this peculiar to those archipelagos 
of floating islands. A recent voyager relates, that he ob- 
served a large pine, similarly peopled, which drifted some 
way beside his vessel. Barnacles adhered in great numbers 
to the trunk; and among the branches and trailing fuci 
were shrimps and teredos, with large water insects, and a 
kind of small fish. The latter especially seemed full of 
life, for they swam merrily about, darting at one time 
among the branches, at another emerging to the full light 
of day; crabs sunned themselves on the parasitic fuci, and 
creatures of strange forms sprang from out the waters, to 
sieze the pendent tufts of sea-weed. ‘* Methought,” said 
the narrator, ‘‘ while looking at them, no portion of the 
globe is more thickly inhabited, or affords, in proportion to 
its size, a greater amount of animal enjoyment, than this 
waye-tossed isle,” 


26 HANDY BOOK OF 


Among such of the aquatic flora as form extensive sub- 
marine meadows, the String-like Corda, or Corda felicem, 
is most frequent on cur shores. Its long and narrow tufted 
fronds, clothed with innumerable gelatinous filaments, are not 
unfrequently at least forty feet in length, and, though com- 
mon to rocks and stones washed by the tide, attain the 
greatest perfection in quict, land-locked bays, with a sandy, 
cr somewhat muddy bottom. In such places the corda 
forms extensive meadows, so dense as often to endanger the 
unfortunate swimmer, who rashly ventures among its slimy 
and tenacious cords, however pleasing to the eye, while 
gently undulating with every motion of the stream. Ven- 
ture not, therefore, in watery places where grows the string- 
like corda, for the risk is great, even if its floating cords 
are seen at a considerable depth beneath the surface, but 
rather obtain a rambling branch from off the shore, and ex- 
amine its wonderful construction. Each frond is composed 
of a single fillet, one or two lines in breadth, spirally 
wreathed into a filiform tube, formed by the cohesion of its 
edges, and these, when separated from the outer skin and 
firmly twisted, acquire such a degree of strength and rough- 
ness, that Highlanders use them for fishing-lines. Hence 
in Scotland, the name of Lucky Minny’s lines—in England, 
sea-traces, asif fitted to curb the steeds of Neptune. Strange 
contrasts are they to the withered-looking Deusta (Kalfsia 
deusia), which rather resembles a ecrustaceous lichen than 
an Alge,and which, common to the rocky shores of the 
Northern Atlantic Ocean, from Iceland to France, spreads 
over their surfaces in dark-brown crustaceous patches. 
While young, these patches are orbicular and smooth, but 
become irregular in outline when old, and are covered more 
or less with wart-like prominences, occasionally even pre- 
senting an exceedingly rugged surface, similar to the bark 
of aged trees. 


Such are a few among the numerous families that com- 


pose the series Dfelanospermee, conspicuous either for utility 
or beauty, large expansion or minuteness, Ranging through- 


MARINE BOTANY. 27 


out all seas, or growing on the shores of different countrics, 
some species even serve as food, and are eagerly collected 
by the bordering inhabitants. In Asia, different kinds of 
Laminaria render palatable the hot condiments of the East ; 
and such as are common to Australia yield nutritious food, 
and vessels for domestic purposes. Knife-handles are 
made in Scotland from the stems of the finger-like Lami- 
naria (Laminarie digitate) ; and when tipped with metal, 
they can hardly be distinguished from those of horn. In 
medicine, the most important benefits result from iodine, 
which is extracted from the Laminaria buccinalis, The 
Gigantina tinens forms, in China, an important article of 
commerce, and at least twenty-seven thousand pounds 
weight are annually imported into Canton from two pro- 
vinces. A tenacious glue is extracted by long boiling, which 
the ingenious Chinese use in manufacturing their lanterns, 
and with the same they also render them transparent. Tra- 
vellers conjecture that it forms a principal ingredient in the 
gummy substance with which the lozenge-shaped interstices 
of their windows, simply formed of bamboo strips crossed 
‘diagonally, are wholly filled up. 


MELANOSPERMEZ. 
Name derived from two Greek words, signifying S/ack and seed. 


Marine plants of an olive-brown colour, changing to 
black in the air, of a leathery or woody substance, and 
fibrous texture. 

Root, in some species accompanied with creeping fibres. 
Froud flat, compressed, or filiform, in many producing dis- 
tinct leaves, and in most, furnished with air-vessels. Fruc= 
tification, spherical clusters of opaque seeds. embedded in 
distinct gelatinous receptacles, and finally escaping through 
external pores, 

Sea-weeds belonging to this series are most frequent about 
half-tide level, and are generally of a large size; when 

C 


ye Ae 


28 TANDY BOOK OF 


rowing in deep water, they either become brown or nearly 
lack. 


Famiry l.—Fcem, 


Plants turning to black when dry; their substance 
leathery or woody. Fronds flattened or hair-like, or form- 
ing distinct leaves, many of the species bearing air-vessels. 
Seeds contained in distinct gelatinous receptacles, 


mT 


FUCUS NODOsUS.* 


The term Frond generally comprises every part of a 


* The whole of the beautiful illustrations which appear in this 
volume have been copied, by permission of Dr. Harvey and Messrs. 
Recve, Benham, and Reeve, from Phycologia Britannica, or British 


MARINE BOTANY. 29 


marine plant except the root; occasionally the stem, if we'll 
developed and distinct, is not included.—Harvey. 


I. Sargassum. A word formed from the Spanish sargazo, a 
name given by navigators to the floating sea-weed. 
1. Vulgare, common sargassum. 
2. Bacciferum, berry-bearing. 


II. Cystoseira. From a Greek word signifying bladder and 
chain, because the air-vessels are generally arranged in 
strings. 

. Ericoides, heath-like cystoseira. 

. Granulata, granulated. 

. Barbata, bearded. 

. Feniculacea, fennel-like. 

. Fibrosa, fibrous, 


oR OC bh 


Ill. Halidrys. The sea, an oak. 
1, Siliquosa, pod-bearing halidrys. 


IV. Pycnophycus. Signifying thick, and sea-weed., 
1, Tuberculatus, swelling pycnophycus. 


 YV. Fucus. Signifying sea-weed. 

1. Vesiculosus, bladder fucus, the keutang of 
Norway, cow-weed of the north-west of Scot- 
land and Ireland, and swine-tang of Goth- 
land. 

2. Ceranoides, lesser. 

3. Serratus, toothed or serrated fucus, the 
bread-tang of Norway. 

4, Nodosus, knotted. 


Sca- Weeds, the most elaborate work extant upon this subject. I 
contains a faithful coloured figure of every plant inhabiting the 
British shores. 


30 HANDY BOOK OF 


5. DMackait, named after its discoverer, sames 
T. Mackay—The Mackay. 
G. Canaliculatus, grooved or channeled. 


VI. Himanthatia. From three Greek words, a strap, a 
branch, the sea. 
1. Lorea, sea-throng lorea. 


Faminty JI,—-LAmInARra, 


Olive-green or brown; membranaceous or leathery. 
Frond leaf-like, stalked, cleft, and sometimes with a mid- 


TLAMINARIA FASCIA. 


rib. Seeds in spots or sori, on the surface of the frond.— 
Harvey. 


MARINE BOTANY. 31 


VII. Alaria. From ala, a wing, in allusion to the winged 
frond. 
1, Esculenta, esculent alaria, called baderlocks, 
or kenware, in Scotland; in the Orkney 
Islands, honey-ware ; in Ireland, ‘marlin, 


VIII. Laminaria, From lamina, a thin plate, in allusion 
to the flat frond. 

1, Digitata, finger-like laminaria, or ‘sea- 
girdles and hangers.” 

2, Bulbosa, bulbous-rooted, or great fur-be- 
lowed laminaria. 

3. Saccharina, sweet laminaria, or sea-belt, 

4, Phillitis, leafy hart’s tongue. 

5. Fascia, bundle-leaved. 


Famity III.—SrorocHnNoIpEs, 


Plants chiefly of a yellowish-green, branches leafy or 
_ hair-like; speedily decomposing on exposure to the air. 
Fronds occasionally bearing deciduous tufts of bright 
green filaments. 
Fructifications, mostly warts, or little stalked, club- 
shaped bodies.— Harvey. 


IX. Desmarestia. Named in honour of A. G. Desmarest, a 
celebrated French naturalist. 
1. Ligulata, strap-leaved desmarestia. 
2. Virides, green or flourishing. 
3, Aculeata, spiny. 


X. Sporochnus. 
1, Pedunculatus, footed sporochnus. 


XI. Corpomitra. Signifying fruit, a cap or mitre. 
1, Cabrere, tendril carpomitra, 


32 HANDY BOOK OF 


XII, Arthrocladia, from joint and a branch, 
1, Villosa, fibrous arthrocladia, 


DESMARESTIA LIGULATA, 


Famity IV.—Dictryorez. 


Marine plants, of an olive-green colour, and membrana- 
ceous, flexible substance, rarely cartilaginous or juicy, with 
a highly reticulated or veined-like net-work structure. 

Frond round or flat, simple or branched, without nerves 
or veins, excepting in Halyseris; often divided in a fan- 
like manner. 

Fructification either in lines, in patches, or sori, and 


a ae 


MARINE BOTANY. 33 


covering the whole of the frond; very rarely enclosed in 
capsules.x— Harvey. 


XIII. Cutleria. In honour of Miss Cutler, of Sidmouth, 
a distinguished algologist. 
1, Multifida, abundant cutleria, 


XIV, Halyseris, From the sea, and endive. — 
1, Polypodioides, polypodious halyseris, 


PADINA PAVONTA, 


XV. Pada, A name invented by Adanson, who has not 
explained the meaning. 
1, Pavonia, peacock-like padina. 


XVI. Padinella. Most probably from Padrus, the river 
Po, whence comes the diminutive@Padinella ; perhaps 
because this weed is found in the Adriatic, near the 
mouth of that river. 

1, Parvula, weak or small padinella. 


84 HANDY BOOK OF 


XVII. Dictyotu, Name signifying a net, from the reti- 
culated structure of the frond. 
1, Dichotoma, cleft dichotoma. 
2, Atomaria, atom-like, 


XVIII. Stitophora. Name derived from the Greek, sig- 
nifying a point or dot; and to bear, in allusion to the 
dot-like fructification. 

1, Rhizodes, iris-like rhizodes. 
2. Lyngbyei, probably a foreign surname. 


XIX. Dictyosyphon, From two Greek words, signifying a 
net or tube. 


1. Feniculaceus, grass-like dictyosiphon. 


XX. Striaria, From the seed vessels being arranged in 
transverse lines. 
1, Attenuata, slender striaria. 


XXI. Punctaria. From punctum, a dot, the fruit being in 
dots. 

1. Latifolia, broad-leaved punctaria. 

2. Plantaginea, plantain-leaved. 

8. Tenuissima, slender. 


XXII. Asperococcus. From asper, rough; and a Greek 
word signifying seed, the dots of seeds being mixed with 
bristle-like filaments. 

1, Compressus, compressed asperococcus. 
2, Turneri, in honour of Turner. 
3. Lchinatus, rough. 


XXIII. Chlorosiphon. Signifying pale green, and tube-like. 
1, Pustllus, small chlorosiphon., 
2. Laminaria, thin-plated. 


XXIV. Chorda. <A cord. 
1. Filium, string-like chorda, or sea laces 
2. Lomentaria, contracted, 


MARINE BOTANY. st) 


Famity V.—EcTocaRPez, 


Marine plants of an olive-green, very rarely of a full 
green colour; filamentous: often capillary or cobwebby, 
jointed, cartilaginous, or flaccid; not very juicy.—Warvcy. 


XXY. Cladostephus. A branch and crown. 
1, Verticillatus, whorled cladostephus. 
2. Spongiosus, spongy. 


SPHACELARIA PLUMOSA. 


XXVI. Sphacelaria, Gangrene, alluding to tne withered 
tips of the branches, 
1, Felicina, fern-like sphacelaria. 
2. Serlutaria, clover-like. 
3. Scoparia, clustered. 
4, Plumosa, feather-like. 
5. Cirrhosa, the tendril-bearing. 
6. Fuca, coloured. 
7. Radicans, rooted. 
8. Olivacea, olive. 
9. Racemosa, clustered. 


36 HANDY BOOK OF 


XXVII. Ectocarpus. Name signifying external, and fruit. 
1, Lnttoralis, shore-loving ectocarpus. 
2. Reticulosus, netted. 
3. Fasciculatus, small-branched. 
4, Hinksie, in honour of Miss Hincks, 
e 5. Scorpioides, scorpion-shaped. 
6. Spineseens, thorny. 
7. Longifructus, long-fruited 
8, Amphibius, ample. 
9. Tomentosus, spongy. 
10. Crinitus, hairy. 
11. Pusillus, small. 
12. Simplex, simple. 
13. Villum, hairy. 
14, Distortus, irregular. 
15. Granulosus, grained. 
16. Spherophorus, ball-carrying. 
17. Brachiatus, branched. 
18, Mertensw, probably a foreign naturalist. 


XXVIII. Myriotrichia, Signifying a thousand, and a hair, 
1. Claveformis, club-formed myriotrichia. 
3. Filiformis, fern-like, 


Famity VI,—CHoRDARIF®. 
From a Greek word, signifying a cord or string, 


XXIX, Myrionema. Signifying a thousand, and a thread. 
1. Strangularis, crooked myriaonem, 
2. Leclancheri. 
3. Punctiforme, pricked. 
4, Clavatum, club-shaped. 


XXX. Elachistea. The meaning dubious; but seemingly 
from a Greek word, least. 
1, Fucicola, purple-yielding elachistea, 


‘ — 


MARINE BOTANY, 37 


, Flaccida, flagging. 

. Curta, short. 

. Pulvinata, powdered, 

. Stellulata, full of stars, 
. Suctulata, shield-like, 
. Velutina, hairy. 


XXXI. Ralfsia, In honour of John Ralfs, Esq., an accurate 
botanist, to whom the science is much indebted, 
1, Deusta, withered-looking deusta. 


“TO cr P Co by ~” 


CHORDARIA DIVARICATA 


XXXII, Leathesia. In honour of the Rey. Mr. Leathes, a 
British naturalist. 
1. Zuberiformis, knob-shaped leathesia. 
2. Berkleye, the Berkeley. 
AXXITI. Mesogloia, Middle, and viscid, in allusion to its 
gelatinous axis. 
1, Vermicularis, chequered mesogloia, 


388 HANDY BOOK OF 


2. Virescens, green. ; 
3. Grifithsiana, in honour of Mrs, Griffith. The 


Griffith. 


XXXIV. Chordaria. A cord, because the branches re- 


semble small cords. 
1. Flagelliformis, small-branched chordaria. 


2, Divaricata, divided. 


CHAPTER V. 


Serres II],—RHoDOSPERMEZ, 


Pass not unheeding, while the punctual tide 

In calm, deep, silent might comes sweeping on, 
Till, rushing with loud sounds, and tossing crests, 
It leaps and rages, thundering on the shore, 

And whirling in its fury wide and far, 

Mark well yon sea-weed, rooted on the rock! 

The madden’d surge assails its fragile form, 

And yet it moves not, clinging with small hands, 
An emblem flower, methinks, of steadfast ones, 
Who dwell in peace amid earth’s wild turmoils. 


ILFRACOMBE, with its rocks and coves, and wild sea-dance 
of waves from the Atlantic, is rich in marine productions. 
The parasitic and sponge-like Callithamnion (Calhthammnion 
spongiosum) is seen adhering to different kinds of Algee, in 
rosy or brown-red conically shaped tufts, which retain water 
like asponge. This isolated species, common to the British 
islands and Atlantic shores of France, never grows beside 
its brother, the shrubby Callithamnion (C. arbuscula), though 
both affect similar localities on different shores, covering 
many arugged or perpendicular sea-cliff with their globese 
tufts, over which the spray of ocean vanishes and reappears, 
and streams adown the sloping sides like molten silver, 


wy 


MARINE BOTANY. 39 


Widely different is the habitat of the deep lake, or rosy- 
red Callithamnion (C, rosewm), which displays its pure and 
brilliant fan-shaped pinne, in contrast to mud-covered 
rocks ; and equally incongruous that of the rare and intri- 
eately tufted C. barbatum, which derives some degreettof 
adventitious beauty from the site whereon it grows. Chil- 
dren are they of neither rock nor sand, but of mud-banks, 


_ whereon all others refuse to vegetate, as if even those un- 


sightly places, where the sea deposits its froth and scum, 
should not be wanting in the loveliest of her productions. 
They read, methinks, a lesson to the heart, hinting that 
moral beauty, nay, even Christian perfection, may exist in 
haunts the most ungenial--the more lovely because of 
hindrances; the more prized in the sight of those who look 
on, though to us invisible, because there has been nought of 
outward means by which to uphold or cherish the moral 
flower. 


‘* There are in the loud stunning tide 
Of human care and crime, 
With whom the melodies abide, 
Of the everlasting chime: 


*¢ Who carry music in their heart, 
’*Mid jostling street and dusty mart: 
Plying their daily task with willing feet, 
Because their inmost souls a holier chime repeat.” 


Far different sites are assigned to the C. Turnert and C. 
tetricum, the Turner, and rough Callithamnion : the former, 
a memorial plant, which recalls to mind its first discoverer, 
Dawson Turner, is generally parasitic on various kinds of 
Algee, creeping, by means of small roots, over the surface of 
marine plants, and covering them with rose-red filaments ; 
the second often grows luxuriantly in pools of salt water left 
by the receding of the tide, or flings occasionally its brown- 


_ red branches over different kinds of Alge. In both, the 
naturalist discovers that the glory of all natural things con- 


40 HANDY BOOK OF 


sists in unity, in a mutual dependence of one upon the 
other, or the elements by which they are surrounded. 
What signifies it, a looker-on might say to the latter of 
these plants, whether growing in one place or the other, 
povided that a rock supports its dise-shaped root, and that 
the rock is within tide-mark? Much, every way. In some 
localities, little exuberance is displayed ; in others, the same 
plant throws out abundant and regular filaments, and be- 
comes fully developed; such is the case, especially, when 
growing on the perpendicular sides of marine rocks, left un- 
covered at low-water, and either open to the sun, or else 
shaded by pendant fronds of the Fucus serratus and F, 
nodosus. 

Few, perhaps, among parasitic sea-weeds, are more deli- 
cate in their construction, or softer in hue, than the many 
scaled Callithamnion (C. polyspermum). A poet, perhaps, 
would tell you, that this friendly plant loves to embellish 
the more unsightly species, such as are rough of leaf, and 
with little of outward beauty to commend them. On these 
it grows profusely, and covers them ofttimes with densely 
set, and globose tufts of brownish, or somewhat purplish 
red, till all that is ungainly-looking in the plant becomes 
concealed, and passers-by linger with delight beside its 
growing-places. Nor less gentle in its nature the many- 
sided Callithamnion, which readily adheres when spread on 
paper, and exhales, if moistened, a scent of violet. 

Naturalists in all ages have associated names of worth or 
talent with their favourite plants; and hence those of 
Brodiai and Borreri in the family of Calhthamnion ; the 
former a brownish-red and tufted plant, peculiar to this 
country, and restricted to the coast of Northumberland, 
Torquay, Cornwall, and Torres ; the latter ranging along the 
Atlantic shores of France and Spain, of the Mediterranean 
and Adriatic seas, equally with those of Britain. This plant 
is eminently beautiful, and may be readily distinguished 
among its brethren by the lower half of its plumules being 


MARINE BOTANY. 41 


bare of ramuli, while the upper is pinnated and spreads like 
the rays of a fan. 

And yet, though bearing no greater name than its own 
simple and appropriate designation, the small-footed Calli- 
thamnion (C. pedicellatum) speaks to the passer-by con- 
cerning that singular distribution of oceanic plants, which 
seems irrespective either of rock or flood. Nestling ofttimes 
in deep rock basins of clear water, or else dredged in from 
four to seyen fathoms, and widely distributed around our 
western coasts, it is vainly sought for in places equally con- 
genial to its growth and habits on the eastern coasts. 
Scotland regards it as one of her rarest plants, and scarcely 
may the botanist discover it in the north of England. 

Scattered throughout the seas of all temperate climates, 
and reaching even to the troubled waters of Cape Horn, the 
genius Griffithsia, including thirty species, commemorates 
the indefatigable researches and accurate knowledge of the 
algologist of Devonshire. Among these, one species alone is 
tropical, several of great beauty are found on the shores of 
the Mediterranean and Australia; and the Cape of Good 
Hope and Western Africa contribute many others; but 
wherever located, they uniformly possess one common pro- 
perty, that of being exceedingly impatient when coming in 
contact with fresh water. In order, therefore, to secure 
well-preserved specimens, they should be brought home in 
their native element, and laid immediately on paper. A 
brief exposure to the air occasions their decomposition, and 
even salt water, after a few hours’ immersion, causes the 


_ cellular membrane to divide, and the coloured matter to be 


discharged with violence. 

Among this numerous tribe, the Grifithsia Devoniensis, 
which differs from every other species, was discovered about 
fifteen years since at Plymouth, and added to the flora of 
Devonshire by Mrs. Wyatt. Harvey records its favourite 
habitat in the specific name, well pleased that while the 
generic appellation recalls to mind the obligations of algology, 


ate Mai 
> % < 


42 HANDY BOOK OF 


the specific should bear the name of a country rich in marine 
productions, as also the favourite residence of their most 
distinguished votary. ; 

The microscope is a revealer of things hitherto invisible. 
Examine by its aid a bunch of the hairy Gloiosiphonia 
(Glovosiphonia capillaris), and what exquisite transparency 
is everywhere perceptible. The pyramidal and thickly- 
branched tufts, of a fine clear rosy crimson hue, look well in 
their native tide-pool; and the artist who essays to paint 
them, may delineate an object of exceeding beauty; but the 
microscope discovers that the whole plant, being equally 
fragile and delicate of texture, and exposed to the ebbing 
and flowing of the tide, is protected by an extraneous 
coating. Thus among land-plants, when the stems are 
hollow, and the places of their growth liable to be swept 
over by fierce’ winds, the material of which they are com- 
posed is so condensed on the surface as to possess nearly the 
hardness of metal. This peculiarity is very obvious in the 
bamboo tribe. Silex is one of their component parts; and 
if two pieces of bamboo are rubbed together, they emit a 
pale light. Corn stalks, with those of grasses, are similarly 
protected ; they contain potash sufficient to form glass with 
their flint ; and if a wheat or barley straw, or even a stalk 
of hay, be subjected to the action of a blow-pipe, a perfect 
globule of hard glass may be obtained. And, as in land- 
plants that are exposed to storms of wind and rain, a pe- 
culiarity of structure or external coating is required, so also 
in such of marine growth as are liable to be affected by 
sudden inundations. Of this, the hairy Gloiosiphonia offers 
a familiar instance. Its growing place, as already men- 
tioned, is a tide-pool, into which the waters often rush with 
tremendous violence, foaming and recoiling, and whirling 
round and round; while the meek and tender plant, thus 
wondrously protected by an extraneous coating, keeps its 
place uninjured. 

Growing occasionally on the same rock as the hairy 


MARINE BOTANY, 43 


Gloiosiphonia, is seen the rare and beautiful Naccaria 
wigghi, and the dull -red furry Chuoria (Chuoria hellita); 
the one delighting the passer-by with its brilliant rose- 
tinted fronds; the other, a species of marine lichen, which 
adheres so closely to its watery habitat, that it can only be 
removed by scraping the rock with a knife. This strange 
plant was first noticed on the shores of Norway, and those 
of the Feroe islands, and has since been found spreading 
over the surface of bare rocks, and forming smooth glossy 
patches of from two to three or more inches in diameter. 
Its ensanguined hue, which resembles a blood-stain upon 
the rock, accords with many of its sterile habitats amid the 
strife of elements; in places, too, once haunted by those 
fierce sea-kings who spread desolation over the dnest 
portions of Europe. 

There is not, methinks, a fragment of rock, however stern 
and lonely, or sea-girt, nor yet a sea-weed, humble though it 
be, and dull of hue, which has not adorablemanifestations of 
wisdom inscribed thereon. Humboldt spoke concerning the 
Southern Cross, and the emotion which it awakened in his 
mind, when crossing the vast plains of the New World. 
‘¢ Midnight is past,’’ exclaimed the guide, ‘‘ for the Southern 
Cross begins to bend ;” and truly it seemed as if some in- 
visible hand had gently touched a secret spring, and caused 
the bending of the Cross, that men who journeyed through 
the night might be cheered with the hope of day-break. 
But who, when passing some wild rock, covered with 
brown-red or blackish-purple tufts of the Griffithsie gym- 
noyongrus, would expect to see the symbol of our faith in- 
seribed among them as clearly as the Southern Cross when 
becoming visible. The fructification of this plant is a 
beautiful microscopic object—strings of small pear-like sub- 
stances, arranged with the most perfect symmetry, are each 
marked with a white cross, and enclosed in ruby-tinted 
sheaves. Thus much the microscope reveals, bringing 
hidden things to light, and investing with a sacredness of 


D 


44 HANDY BOOK OF 


character that wild sea-weed which is dispersed on most of 
the Atlantic shores, from a high northern latitude to the 
tropics, though as yet undiscovered in the Southern 
ocean. 


CHAPTER VI. 


RHODOSPERME A, 


Marine plants of a rose-red, purple, or red-brown colour, 
leafy, cylindrical, or filamentous. Fructification mostly 
double, the primary contained in capsules, receptacles, or 
immersed in the frond; the secondary (when present) 
minute granules, forming sori, scattered or defined patches, 
or embedded in distinet receptacles. Seeds, red or red- 
brown.—Harvey. 


Faminy VII.—CERAMIER, 


Pritota PLumosA. Communicated by a friend, from the coast of 
Ayrshire, July 1849, 


MARINE BOTANY, 45 


XXXV. Callithamnion. Name derived from two Greek 
words, signifying beautiful, and a little shrub. 

1, Plwmula, small feathery callithamnion, 
2. Cruciatum, cross-like, 

3. Fioccosum, woolly. } 

4, Turnert, Turner’s, 

5. Pluma, feathered. 

6. Barbatum, bearded. 

7. Arbuscula, shrubby. 

8. Brodiai, the Brodie, 

9. Tetragonum, square-branched, 
10. Harveyanum, the Harvey, 

11. Zetricum, rough. 

12. Hookert, the Hooker, 

13. Roseum, rosy. 

14. Byssotdeum, fine-formed. 

15. Polyspermum, many-seeded, 
16. Fasciculatum, small-bundled, 
17. Borrerz, the Borreri. 

18. Tripinnatum, thrice-winged, 
19. Affine, compressed, 
20. Gracillimum, slender. 
21. Thuyotdeum, clustered, 
22. Corymbosum, corymbose. 
23. Spongiosum, spongy. 

24. Pedicellatum, small-footed. 
25. Floridulum, florid, 
26. Rothi, the Rothi. 
27. Mesocarpum, middle-fruit 
28. Sparsum, spreading. 
29. Daviesn, the Davy. 


XXXVI. Setrospora. A name derived from two Greek 
words—a chain, and a seed. 
1. Griffthsiana, in honour of Mrs. Griffth. 
The Griffith seirospora, 


46 


HANDY BOOK OF 


XXXVII, Wrangelia. In honour of Baron yon Wrangel, 
a Swedish naturalist. 


1. 


Multifida, many-cleft Wrangelia. 


XXXVIII. Grifithsia. In honour of Mrs, Griffith, of Tor- 
quay, the most distinguished of British algologists; so 
named by Agardhi. 


1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
d. 
6. 
ae 


Equisetifolia, equisetum-like Griffithsia. 
Simplicifilum, simple-leaved. 

Barbata, bristly. 

Devonensis, the Devonshire. 

Corallina, coralline-like. 

Secundifiora, the one-side-flowering. 
Setacea, bristled. 


XXXIX. Spyridia. Signifying a basket. 


i 


Filamentosa, filamentous spyridia. 


XL. Ceramium. Signifying a pitcher. 


i 


Ciliatum, ciliated ceramium. 


. Acanthonotum, thorn-backed. 
. Echionotum, prickly. 

. Flabelligerum, windy. 

. Nodosum, knotty. 

. Pellucidum, transparent. 


Strictum, concise. 


. Gracillimum, slender. 

. Diaphanum, red-dotted. 

. Fastigiatum, pyramid-shaped. 

. Deslongchampsit, the Deslongchamp. 
. Decurrens, spreading. 

. Botryocarpum, grape-like, 

. Rubrum, red. 


XLI. Microcladia, From small, and a branch. 


i. 


Glandulosa, grained microcladia. 


MARINE BOTANY. 47 


XLII. Péilota. Signifying pinnated or winged. 
1. Plumosa, feathery ptilota. 
2. Sericea, silk-like. 


Famity VIII.—Gtolocnapia. 


Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 
CrovaniaA ATTENUATA (Fig. 1), growing on Cladostephus spongio- 
sus, Fig. 2, a branch magnified.—Harvey’s Phycologia Britannica, 


XLII. Crouania. In honour of two brothers of the name 
of Crouan, of Brest. 
1. Attenuata, slender Crouania, 


XLIV. Dudresnaia. In honour of M. Dudresnay. 
1. Coccinea, erimson-coloured Dudresnay. 
2, Divaricata, spreading. 


XLV. Nemalion. Thread, and a cross, 
1. Mutifidum, many-cleft nemalion. 


XLVI. Glotosiphonia. Viscid, and a tube. 
1. Capillaris, hairy gloiosiphonia. 
2. Purpurea, purple. 


ALVII. Naccaria. In honour of Naccari, an Italian 


botanist. 
1. Wigyhi (proper name), the Wigg Naccari. 


48 HANDY BOOK OF 


XLVIII. Cruorta. From a Greek word signifying blood, 
because the plant resembles a blood-stain on the rock. 
1 Pellita, furry cruoria. 


Famity 1X,—N&EMASTOMER, 


Inibza Epvuuis. Contributed by Dr. Cocks, of Falmouth, 
Cornwall, 


XLIX. Iridea. [Rainbow, because some species reflect 
rainbow colours when growing under water, 


1. Edulis, edible iridea. 


L. Cutanella. A little chain, in allusion to the necklace- 
form of the frond. 


1. Opuntia, herb-like catanella, 


MARINE BOTANY. 49 


Famity X.—SPONGIOCARPER. 


PHYLLOPHORA Rusens.— Harv. Phy. Brit. . 


I, Polyjides. Many forms; a name ill applied to the pre- 
sent genus. 
1. Rotundus, globular polyides. 


LI. Furcellaria. From furcella, a little fork, alluding to 
the forked frond. 


1, Fastigiata, pyramid-shaped furcellaria. 


LI. Gymnogongrus. Signifying uncovered warts, in allu- 
sion to the appearance of the fruit. 


1, Plhicatus, folded. 
2. Griffithsie, the Grifith gymnogongrus. 


LIY. Chondrus. Signifying a cartilage. 
1. Crispus, curled chondrus. 
2. Norvegicus, Norwegian. 


50 HANDY BOOK OF 


LY. Phyllophora. Membranaceous, with small fronds. 
1. Rubens, red phyllophora. 
2. Brodiei, the Brodie. 


LVI. Peyssonelia. In honour of J. A. Peyssonel, an early 
observer of marine plants, especially corallines. 
1. Dubyi, the Dubyi Peyssonelia. 


LVII. Hildenbrantia. More known by the name of Ralfsia 
deusta, in honour of John Ralfs, of Penzance. 
1, Rubra, red hildebrantia. 


Famity XI,—GASsTROCARPER. 


LVIII. Kalymenia. Signifying a beautiful membrane. 
1. Reniformis, simply-branched kalymenia. 
2. Dubyi, the Duby. 


LIX. Halymenia. The sea, and a membrane. 
1. Ligulata, strap-leaved halymenia. 


Dumont1A Fin1rormis.—Dr. Cocks, Falmouth, Swanpool, on rocks 
Feb. 1846, 


i 


MARINE BOTANY, §l 


“LX. Ginnannia. In honour of Count Ginnanni, of Ravenni, 
author of a work on the productions of the Adriatic. 
1. Furcellata, forked Ginnannia. 


LXI. Dumontia. In honour of M. Dumont, a rench na: 
turalist. 
1. Filiformis, thread-like Dumontia. 


Famity XII,—CoccocarPeZ, 


WV 


GIGARTINA Mamittosa.—Harv. Fhy. Brit 


LXII. Gigartina. A grape stone, which the tubercles ro- 
semble. 
1. Pistillata, pestle-like gigartina: 
2. Acicaluris, needle. 
3. Teedi, the Teedy. 
4, Mamillosa, abundant. 


ou HANDY BOOK OF 
LXILL. Gelidium. From gelée, frost, whence also gelatine; 
but none of the species are gelatinous. 
1, Corneum, horny gelidium. 
2. Cartilagineum, cartilaginous. 
LXIV. Grateloupia. In honour of Dr. Grateloup, a French 
algologist. 
1. Felicina, fern-like Grateloup. 


Famity XIII.—SPH#ROCcOCcCOIDER, 


RuopYMENIA PatMAtA,—Contributed by Dr. Cocks. 


LXV. Hypnea. An alteration of Hypnum, the name of a 
genus of mosses, in allusion to the mossy character of . 
some of the original species. 


1. Hypnea purpurescens, purple hypnea. 


“= 


MARINE BOTANY. 53 


LXVI. Gracilaria. . From gracilis, slender. 


1. Hrecta, erect gracilaria. 

2. Confervoides, thick. 

3. Compressa, compressed. 

4, Multipartita, many-parted. 


LXVII. Spherococcus. From two Greek words, a sphere 
or globe, and fruit. 


1, Spherococeus coronopifolius, crown-leayed 
spheerococcus. 


LXVIII. Rhodymenia. From two Greek words, red, anda 
membrane. 


1. Bifida, cloven rhodymenia. 

2. Laciniata, jagged. 

3. Palmetta, branched. 

4, Membranifolia, membrane-leayed. 
5. Cristata, tufted. 

6. Cilata, hairy. 

7, Jubata, maned. 

8. Palmata, hand-shaped. 


Faminty XIV.—DELESSERIEZ. 


LXIX. Plocamium. From the Greek, braided-hair. 


1. Coccineum, scarlet plocamium. 
LXX. Delesseria. In honour of Baron Delessert. 


. Sanguinea, red dock-leayed Delesseria. 
. Stnuosa, plaited. 

. Alata, winged. 

. Angustissema, narrow. 

. Hypoglossum, tongue-shaped. 

. Ruscifolia, box-leaved. 


oamrwh 


54 HANDY BOOK OF 


LXXI. Mitophyllum. Corruptly formed-from nitor, to shine, 
and a leaf—shining-leaf. 
1. Punctatum, pricked, spotted. 
2. Hillie, the Hilli. 
3. Bonnematsoni, the Bonnemaison. 
4. Gmelini, Gmelin’s. 
5. Laceratum, torn. 
6. Versicolor, the changing-colour. 


DELESSERIA SANGUINEA.—Contributed by Dr. Cocks, 


FamMity XV.—CHONDRIER. 


LXXII. Bonnemaisonia, In honour of M. Bonnemaison, a 
French naturalist. 


1. Asparagoides, asparagus-like Bonnemaisonia. 


LXXIIT. Laurencta. In honour of M. de la Laurencie, a 
French naturalist, 


1. Pinnatifida, pinnatified Laurencia, 
2. Hybrida, mongrel. 

8. Obdtusa, blunted. 

4, Dasyaphylla, hairy 

5, Lenuissima, slende 


MARINE BOTANY. 55 


LXXIV. Chrysimenia. From two Greek words, golden, 
and a membrane; because the species acquires golden 
tints if long steeped in fresh water. 


1. Clavellosa, round-knobbed clayellosa, 


CHYLOCLADIA PaRvuLA.—Contributed by Dr. Cocks. 


LXXV. Chylocladia. From two Greek words, juice, and 2 
branch. 

Ovalis, egg-shaped chylocladia. — 

Kaliformis, jointed saltwort. 

Reflexa, turned back. 

Parvula, lesser. 

. Articulata, jointed, coralline-like. 


gx co BO 


Faminy X VI.—CoRALLINER, 


LXXVI. Corallina, Name derived from resembling coral. 
1. Offcinalis, medicinal. 
2. Elongata, lengthened. 
3. Squamata, sealed. 


is 


56 HANDY BOOK OF 


LXXVII. Jania, meaning obscure. 
1. Rubens, red jania. 
2. Corniculata, little-horned. 


Gist ual 


CORALLINA OFFICINALIS.—Harv, Phy. Brit. 


LXXVIII. Melobesia, Name from one of the sea-nymphs 
of Hesiod. 

Polymorpha, diversified. 

Calcarea, calcareous. 

Fasciculata, small bundle. 

Agariciformis, mushroom-formed. 

Incheniformis, lichen-formed. 

Membranacea, membranaceous, 

Farinosa, powdery. 

Verrucata, warted. 

Pustulata, blistered. 


ODIMRAhODH 


Famity X VII.—RHODOMELEA, 


LXXIX. Odonthalia. Name derived from two Greek words, 


tooth and sea, meaning a toothed sea-plant. 
1. Dentata, toothed odonthalia. 


3 


LXXX, Rhodomela, meaning undefined. 
1. Subfusca, spread abroad. 
2. Lycopodiides, probably wolf-eyed. 


MARINE BOTANY. 57 


LXXXI. Bostrichia, Greek word signifying a curl of hair, 
or ringlet. 


1, Scorpioides, scorpion-tailed. 


Dasya CoccinEA.—Contributed by Dr. Cocks, Oct. 1845. 


LXXXII. Rytiphlea. From two Greek words, signifying 
a wrinkle and bark, because the surface is transversely 
wrinkled. 

1. Pinastroides, rytiphlea-feathered. 
2. Complanata, smooth. 

3. Thuyordes. 

4, Fruticulosa, shrubby. 


LXXXIII. Polysiphonia. From two Greek works, signi- 
fying many tubes. 
1. Parasitica, parasitic polysiphonia. 
2. Subulifera, thorny. 


58 


HANDY BOOK OF 


Spinulosa, small-spined. 


. Atro-rubescens, dark-red. 
. Nigrescens, swarthy. 

. Furcellata, small-horned. 
. Fastigiata, tufted. 

. Richardsont, the Richardson, 
. Griffithsiana, the Griffith. 
. Carmichaeliana, the Carmichael, 
. Brodiat, the Brodie. | 

. Fibrillosa, straw-coloured. 
. Violacea, violet-coloured 
. Variegata, variegated. 

. Grevillit, the Greville. 

. Fibrata, fibrous-branched. 
. Stricta, ridged. 

. Pulvinata, dusty-looking. 
. Obscura, obscure. 

. Formosa, the beautiful. 

. Urceolata, hair-like. 

. Elongata, lobster-horn. 

. Llongella, elongated. 

. Byssoides, tufted. 


LXXXIV. Dasya. From a Greek word, signifying hairy 


i; 
2. 


Coccinea, scarlet-robed dasya. 
Ocellata, eye-like spotted, 


3. Arbuscula, tufted. 


oe 


MARINE BOTANY. 59 


CHAPTER VII. 


Come, stand with me, and let us watch the tide 
Obey that mandate which restricts its progress : 
Nay, sendeth back the proud waves, should they venture 
Beyond their boundary, though it be soft sand. 


SEE you not that jagged rhodomenia (R. laciniata), one 
of the most conspicuous among our native species? Its 
bright clear red, varying to the deepest crimson, vividly 
contrasts with the dark, weather-beaten rock to which it 
clings, and the huge masses of lichen-dotted stones that 
strew the beach. Let us watch the ebbing of the tide; and 
yet, so gently and imperceptibly retreat the scarcely heaving 
waters, that while we are speaking a change commences. 
We no longer look down on a mirror-like surface, which 
reflects every passing cloud or bird, or the beetling crags, 
with their light wreathing mists, but rather on a firm belt 
of sand, covered with sunken rocks. 

Poets have sung concerning the effect produced by moun- 
tain mists, when gathered thickly on rugged heights, or 
floating lightly around green hills, till, melting before the 
beams of the rising sun, they reveal the grandeur of the one 
or the sylvan beauty of the other. But not less worthy of 
regard is the gradual receding of the tide from off a coast, 
rich in marine productions, when small coves, or deep-sea 
basins, formed by sunken rocks, are gradually rendered 
visible, and sea-weeds, deposited by the receding waters, 
are spread, as if in triumph, on the shores, or else revealed 
in their native growing-places; where, too, the little 
zoophyte opens her mimic blossoms to the sun, as if rejoicing 
in the consciousness of existence. 

The tide is gone far out, and yonder appears another tuft 
of the jagged rhodomenia, lifting its bright head above the 
receding waters. Its ample leaves are fully developed, 

E 


\ 


60 HANDY BOOK OF 


dripping and sparkling with augmented beauty ; and around 
it are a wild brotherhood of stones, covered with the deep- 
green, oozy weed of ocean. 

Men speak of trials in this probationary state. Doubtless 
there is much to call for sympathy and aid—and blessed are 
those who sow beside the waters of affliction; yet, still there 
is a vast amount of happiness, concerning which few take 
note. Think you not that marine insects which find their 
homes on the broad leaves of that magnificent sea-plant are 
unsusceptible of happiness; that the bright beams of the 
warm sun are not to them an additional source of enjoyment: 
or that the overspreading of the waters, when they cover 
again, as with a mantle, the plants among which such 
insects dwell, does not produce a grateful and necessary 
change? The microscope has revealed much concerning the 
haunts and habits of those small creatures which are assigned 
to all land-plants ; and, doubtless, sea-weeds have each some 
occupant which, equally with its terrestrial brethren, has an 
allotted duty to fulfil in the economy of nature. 

The jagged rhodomenia offers another instance of pre- 
scribed locality, for its place of growth is uniformly on 
marine rocks or stones, or the strong stems of the laminarie, 
but rarely within tide-mark, And, thus enlivening many a 
sea-girt rock with its crimson tufts, it extends along our 
shores, from the Orkneys to that extreme point in Cornwall, 
the Land’s-End, where the sternness of rock and flood con- 
trasts with the repose and beauty of this bright plant, over 
which the waves of araging sea often rush with tremendous 
fury. It is also aboriginal in Ireland and Jersey; but its 
wider range are the Atlantic shores of Europe, reaching 
from Spain to Norway; those of the Feroe Isles, and the 
eastern coasts of South America, far south as the Delaware. 

Frequent on the shores of Britain, and the south and west 
of Ireland, appears the hairy rhodomenia (RK. etliata), which, 
unlike its brilliant relative, is of a dutl and purplish red, 
This plant, extending farther in its geographic range, 


MARINE BOTANY, 61 


diversifies the sterile rocks of Greenland and Iceland, and, 
though rare in Scotland, is found occasionally in Iona, that 
celebrated island with its rocks and ruins, and tombs of men 
who preserved the light of Christianity from being extin- 
guished amid the darkness of Europe. Associated, therefore, 
with that sea-girt isle and its memorial tombs, is this small 
plant, growing at one time on rocks, at another in some 
clear rock-basin, beside which, as tradition tells, Columba 
used to watch the setting sun when tinging the waves of the 
Atlantic with its golden hue. 

Few plants are more sportive in appearance than the 
maned rhodomenia (#. jubata), and specimens are found 
which differ considerably from the general type. It seems, 
also, as if the same diversity of character was conspicuous 
throughout, for the plant changes quickly in fresh water ; 
the dull red colour becomes orange, then brown, and when 
placed under pressure, though readily adhering to the paper, 
it shrinks considerably. And yet, however varying in ap- 
pearance, it is readily distinguished from the hairy rhodo- 
menia by greater stiffness of texture, and a brighter colour ; 
it is likewise a summer plant, while the maned attains 
perfection in winter. «+ 

Found equally on the Atlantic shores of Europe and those 
of the Mediterranean, its place of growth is the stony bed of 
rock-pools, into which the tide often rushes with great force ; 
and hence, probably, the densely-matted and branching 
fibres, which enable it to adhere nly to its pebbly or rocky 
domicile. 

The broadly membranaceous hand-shaped rhodomenia 
(R. palmata), with its coriaceous fronds, of which the sub- 
stance in large varieties is leathery, in smaller rather curious 
than beautiful, is frequent on the British coasts, and ranges 
equally throughout Northern and Arctic Europe, progressing 
from temperate to ice-bound rocks, covered with snow that 
never melts, beneath which the seal and walrus find a shelter. 
Voyagers relate that the hand-shaped rhodomenia spreads 


62 HANDY BOOK OF 


its dull red fronds within tide-mark along the coasts of Ice- 
land and Kamtschatka, Greenland, and the Kurile Isles, 
running from the southern promontory of Kamtschatka to 
Japan; as likewise on the eastern shores of North America, 
Unalaschka, and Jasmania. Botanists consequently infer 
that a species thus widely extended is designed to subserve 
some purpose of universal importance. Borrowing an analogy 
from terrestrial plants, and applying the knowledge thus 
obtained respecting things well known to such as from their 
watery location necessarily remain obscure, they conjecture 
that the hand-shaped rhodomenia either shelters marine 
insects which serve as food to the finny tribes, or else that 
they afford pasture to those innumerable shoals of herrings, 
and different species of migratory fish, which annually resort 
to their sterile growing-places. 

Three distinct forms are comprised under the general 
appellation of the hand-shaped rhodomenia, the well-known 
Dulse of the Scotch, and the Dillisk of the Irish. Young 
botanists would hardly suppose that they pertain to the 
same plant, and yet they by no means exhibit the extreme 
of variation ; for some specimens are more simple than the 
one, and more finely divided than the other. Such varieties 
when dried occasion no small difficulty in tracing the limits 
of the species; but if a collector has once seen and tasted a 
specimen of dulse when taken from the water, he has no 
difficulty in recognizing the plant, however differing in 
appearance. And not less eurious is the fact, that if the 
dulse grows on rocks, its fronds are broad, and slightly 
divided ; but if attached to the serrated fucus, they prove 
that this widely-diffused sea-weed derives a peculiar cha- 
racter from the parent plant. Harvey further mentions 
that his own experience restricts the growth of the common 
dulse to the serrated and vessel-bearing fuce. 

This valuable plant is in great request among the Scotch 
and Irish as a pleasant esculent, and the old cry of ‘¢ Dulse 
and Tankle” is still heard in the streets of Edinburgh. 


MARINE BOTANY. 63 


The variety which attaches itself to mussel shells between 
tide-marks is generally preferred as less rigid, while the 
minute shell-fish which cling to its fronds are grateful to 
the consumers of this simple luxury. By the Highlanders 
it is called Duillisk, compounded of two Gaelic words, duzlle, 
a leaf, and wisge, water, t.e. the leaf of the water. From 
wisge, according to Landsborough, is derived the word 
whisky, and with the addition of baugh, life, we have the 
usquebaugh of the Irish (aqua vite), ‘‘the water of life ;” 
but with how much more propriety might it be termed ‘‘ the 
water of death!” 

In different parts of Ireland, the same marine plant is 
known by the apvellation of Dillisk, which also signifies the 
leaf of the water, for esk means water, and hence the many 
rivers which bear in Scotland the name of Esk. .Those who 
dwelt beside the coasts where grew the dulse, used in old 
times to dry that plant in the sun, and, having rolled it 
firmly together, to smoke it instead of tobacco. Happy 
would it have been for many if they had adhered to the 
plant of their own shores, which, instead of being hurtful, 
is both wholesome and pleasant, especially when taken fresh 
from the sea, as is common in the Lowlands! The same 
species is also carefully collected on the islands of the Archi- 
pelago, and is used in ragouts and made-dishes, to which it 
imparts a red colour, being equally preferred on account of 
its nutritious qualities and pleasant flavour. The dried 
frond, when steeped in water, exhales an odour resembling 
violets; Dr. Patrick Neill even mentions that it communi- 
cates a similar flavour to vegetables if mixed with them. 

The branched rhodomenia (R. palmetta) is readily dis- 
tinguished by its fan-like and rose-red fronds, which are 
more or less deeply cleft, with rounded interstices and 
wedge-shaped terminations, as also by deep red spots on 
each. Those who visit the British coasts in quest of Algz, 
may often find this plant on rocks near the verge of low- 
water, occasionally at a greater depth, adhering to the 


64 HANDY BOOK OF 


stems of the laminaria digitata, or sea girdle. Sidmouth 
is one of its most favourite haunts ; and beautiful is the 
effect which it produces when seen through a clear trans- 
parent medium, affixed to some dark and rugged sea-rock. 

A small brotherhood is that of rhodomenia, and yet com- 
prising much of beauty and variety. Varying in colour 
from the brightest pink to dull red, they claim by this 
heraldic hue their relationship to the red series rhodosper- 
mez ; a colour rare within the tropics, and still more un- 
common in polar latitudes, but which especially belongs to 
the temperate zone, of san the members are most luxu- 
riant in form and rich in species from the 55th to the 45th 
degree of latitude, but rapidly diminishing towards the 
Equator after passing the 35th. 

With regard to such of this beautiful and infinitely 


varied series as pertain to the shores of Britain and her - 


immediate dependencies, we may briefly note that they 
attain the highest perfection in deep water. When occur- 
ring above half-tide level, they assuie either purple, or 
orange, or yellow tints, occasionally even a cast of green: 
and are rarely of a bright hue within the range of extreme 
low-water mark, above which many of the more delicate 
species refuse to vegetate, while such as still exist degene- 
rate both in form and colour. 

Let not the algologist object that the brilliant family of 
rhodomenia has taken precedence of their unassuming elder 
brother, the purple hypnum (Hypnea purpurescens), thus 
named from its moss-like character. The eye resting on 
their beauty, caused this departure from prescribed rules of 
precedence, and hence it happened that the hypnea was 
passed by. But that tribe, however humble, must not 
remain unnoticed. Analogous to creeping plants, which 
lift themselves ofttimes into air and light by the aid of 
clasping tendrils, the hypnum has its screw-like fibres, 
with which to lay hold of rough projections on sea-rocks, 
and thus preserves a tenacious grasp amid the strife of 


ee: 


MARINE BOTANY, 65 


waters. Hence its wide dispersion along the shores of the 
North Atlantic. 

The Compressed Gracilaria (Gracilaria compressa) is 
restricted, on the contrary, to the coasts of Europe, and its 
beautiful companion, the Erect Gracilaria, is found, though 
irregularly, in the same locality; at one time delighting 
the searehers after curious specimens, at another sought for 
in vain, and remaining absent during many years, This 
peculiarity of profuse recurrence and disappearance may be 
readily explained. Changes occur in the bed of ocean, 
produced by inundations of sand and gravel, brought by 
tributary rivers from the sides of mountains, and over- 
whelming such marine meadows as spread contiguous. 
Thus, for example, scarcely has the Rhone passed out of the 
Lake of Geneva, before its pure waters are filled with sands 
and sediments by the impetuous Arve, which, descending 
from the highest Alps, bears in its current the granitic 
wrecks that are annually brought down by the glaciers 
from Mont Blane. 

But wherever found, the Compressed Gracilaria is uni- 
formly discovered among marine deposits, cast up from deep 
waters ; and Harvey consequently infers that its growing- 
place lies hid in the bed of ocean. This curious plant bears 
a close resemblance to the G. lichenoides of the East Indies; 
and Mrs, Griffith, believing the plant to be identical, pre- 
pared from it a pickle and preserve, which proved excellent 
in flavour, as well as ornamental, thus proving that our 
native plant is equally as valuable as its Indian relative. 

Restricted by its geographical distribution to the shores 
of France and England, the rare and elegant Erect Gracilaria 
(G. erecta), which is yet scarcely known beyond the pre- 
cincts of our own country, was long familiar under the 
manuscript name of Suffocatus, a name designed to express 
its frequent place of growth in shallow rock pools, where it 
is found half buried in sand. Occasionally, however, the 
same plant may be seen peeping forth from amid the sand, 


66 HANDY BOOK OF 


when the tide is out, but more frequently it is dredged from 
four or five-fathom water. 

Different species of the family of Rhodomenia, connected 
with the present series, crowd before the mental view, but 
while looking over notes made at various times we shall 
briefly select a few of the most conspicuous. Among ‘such 
the red dock-leaved Delessaria (D. sanguinea) is entitled to 
rank high in the oceanic flora; and notwithstanding its 
common occurrence on our shores, is never seen without 
attracting admiration. In favourable localities, at Scar- 
borough and Yarmouth, Falmouth Bay and the Scilly Isles, 
specimens are seen occasionally of gigantic size, while the 
length and breadth of its delicately membranaceous, yet 
glossy and shiny leaves, render it one of the most beauti- 
ful objects in nature. Asa type therefore of its genus, the 
red dock-leayed Sanguinea worthily commemorates the 
services rendered to marine botany by her most distin- 
guished votary, whose loss was deeply felt, and whose place 
in the wide circle of which he was the centre can never 
be supplied. 

The absence of a nerve distinguishes the genus Mitro- 
phyllum from the preceding, as do the thinner, more reticu- 
lated substance, and distinct spots of granules, from the 
brotherhood of Rhodomenia. Marine botanists, therefore, 
who seek for the six members of this pleasing genus on the 
cvast of Devonshire or Cornwall, where they obtain a full 
development, will do well to bear their distinctive pecu- 
liarities in mind. Such also is the favourite haunt of the 
blunted Laurencia (Z. obtusa), which, in common with its 
brethren, recalls to mind the name of M. de la Laurencie. ~ 
In colour a fine but fleeting pink, it is said to emit the 
scent of violets; and those who gather it along our shores 
are thus often pleasingly reminded of green fields and banks 
where grew the favourite flower of their childhood. And 
yet, though beautiful in its assigned locality, conspicuous 
too, being from three to six inches high, it may not compare 


MARINE BOTANY. 67 


with the Spotted Nitrophyllum (NV. punctatum), either in 
size or hue. That plant, ‘‘ beloved the most” by those who 
seek for marine productions, either in their ocean sites or 
sterile growing-places, is common to the coasts of England 
and Ireland, with those of Scotland, far north as the 
Orkneys, and attains to a gigantic size at Cushendall Bay, 
in the west of Ireland. What think you of a sea-plant five 
feet long by three feet wide, of a delicate rose-pink colour, 
spotted with capsules and sori ofa darker hue? Such isthe 
Spotted Nitrophyllum, of which mantles might be formed, 
worthy to adorn the Nereides in their mossy halls, or, in days 
long past, the sea-green sisters of Cyrene, when beneath the. 
classic waters of Pineus— 


** One common work they plied; their distaffs full 
With carded locks of blue Milesian wool,” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


** Ant’s finest pencil would but rudely mock 
The beauteous corals border’d on a rock ; 
And those grey watery grots he would explore, 
Small excavations on a rocky shore, 
That seem like fairy baths or mimic wells, 
Richly emboss’d with choicest weeds and shells, 
As if her wonders Nature chose to hide, 
Where nought invaded but the flowing tide.”’ 


WHat see you on this wild sea-rock round which the 
clear transparent sparkling waters gently swell and ripple ? 
A specimen of the Corallina officinalis, or medicinal coral, 
the type of a beauteous family, which has long engaged the 
attention of naturalists, and whose place in marine botany 
is now accurately defined. This interesting species forms, 


68 HANDY BOOK OF 


with its relatives, a distinct family, and derives its specific 
name from coralium, or coral, which it resembles in being 
of a stony nature, although decidedly vegetable ; for who- 
ever macerates a specimen in acid till the lime which it 
contains is dissolved will discover that it is essentially 
different from coral, although analogous to many Algee. 
Corallines, widely diffused throughout the shores of all 
countries within the temperate zones of the Northern At- 
lantic, perhaps even along those of the Southern and Pacific 
Oceans, appear at first as thin calcareous and circular patches 
of a purplish colour, attached to almost every stone or sea- 
weed between tide-marks. By degrees, small branches 
become perceptible ; the root assumes a decided character, 
and the fronds, from one to six inches high, congregate in 
dense tufts, or spread in continuous patches over a wide 


surface, differing as respects their general aspect according _ 


to the depth at which vegetation generally commences. Few 
plants present a greater variety, and few are more difficult 
to specify. They vary both in size and structure, for 
Nature is ever prodigal in the profusion of her embellish- 
ments, 


‘¢ Some present 
Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees, 
And shrubs of fairy-land; while others shine 
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, 
And fledged in snowy feathers, nod superb.”’ 


The coast of Devon yields an exquisite variety of these 
marine productions. They are often left by the receding 
of the tide upon the shore, and as often float by on the 
sparkling waves. Some appear like little tufts of grass, 
borne hither and thither by the billows; others resemble 
bunches of hair-like tubes, varied with rainbow tints; a 
few may be compared to clusters of diminutive beads; and 
a large proportion to long brown filaments, covered with a 
calcareous crust. 


MARINE BOTANY. 69 


The favourite locality of the medicinal coral is pools or 
rocks between tide-marks; while its brother, the scaly 
coral, is seen on submarine rocks at the extremity of low- 
water mark throughout the southern coasts of England. 
Miltown Malbay, Youghal, in the west of Ireland, and 
Jersey, are its frequent growing-places, and in these it 
attains a full development, being readily distinguished 
from the medicinal, chiefly by the construction of the upper 
joints of the stem and branches, which are broad and flat, 
with prominent and usually sharp angles. 

Modern algologists have separated the Corallina corni- 
culata, or little-horned coralline, from its brethren, and 
given it the appellation of Jania corniculata,—Jama being 
derived from Janera, one of the Nereides; and corniculata 
from its peculiar construction. The species is generally 
parasitic on smaller Algze in rock-pools between tide-mark, 
and is found on the southern coasts of England and Ireland, 
as also, in its wider range, throughout the shores of the 
Atlantic and the Mediterranean. 

A separation has also been made with regard to the 
Griffithsia corallina, or coral-like Griffithsia, of which the 
generic name is given in honour of Mrs. Griffiths. This 
most beautiful, and yet not very uncommon plant, can 
hardly fail to attract the notice of those who study the 
marine Flora. Hence it was figured by Dillenius among 
the few ocean plants which he has preserved. Linnsus 
also, in his wanderings along the shores of the Arctic 
regions, was often cheered by the sight of its clear red- 
beaded fronds. 

Pleasingly associated with the name of Icolmkill, is the 
Melobesia polymorpha, or diversified Melobesia ; a species of 
coral which grows best on submarine rocks, and in quiet 
bogs, and is yet so abundant in the Orkneys as to warrant 
_ the conclusion that it might be advantageously employed 
for agricultural purposes, and for building, especially as 
limestone is scarce, and generally of bad quality, in the 


70 HANDY BOOK OF 


island. St. Columba knew its value when he constructed 
a cathedral in Iona. The cement employed by his work- 
men was formed of lime calcined from sea-shells, and made 
into rough mortar, with a large proportion of coarse gravel, 
and fragments of white coral, which abounds along the 
shores. And so strong is this cement, that more readily 
might the stones be broken than forced asunder. Yet the 
Diversified Melobesia is delicate in its formation, and 
scarcely might the looker-on conjecture that latent powers 
were concealed in its irregularly-lobed fronds. Those 
fronds, when thrown upon the shore, become bleached in 
the sunbeams, but when newly dredged, they are of a 
reddish purple. The elegant Zima tenera nestles among 
them, and, like the builders who wrought in the cathedral 
of Icolmkill, employs small pieces of detached coral in con- 
structing his submarine grotto. And wondrously is the 
grotto wrought; for the Lima, its inhabitant, is not only 
a mason, but a rope-spinner, a tapestry-weaver, and a 
plasterer. Each of these dissimilar occupations is required ; 
for were the creature merely an adept in the mason’s craft, 
he might not cause the fragments of coral to adhere. 
Cordage, therefore, is required to bind together the angular 
pieces; and this cordage he readily spins, although its 
mode of spinning is among the secrets of the deep. Men 
require hands with which to produce cordage, but the lima 
does without them, and contrives to intertwine the yarn 
among innumerable bits of coralline till they are bound 
together. This habitation is rough externally, and there- 
fore better fitted to elude the enemy ; but within, the case 
is otherwise. The walls are beautifully smooth, for the 
yarn is woven into tapestry, and all interstices are filled 
with lime, till the whole resembles fine plaster-work, not 
unlike the patent Intonaco of Mrs. Marshall. And thus the 
ingenious inhabitant dwells securely amid the waters, in a 
grotto lined with tapestry, where no jutting points may 
injure his tiny form. Tapestry, as a covering for walls, 


od 


MARINE BOTANY. 71 


was once the proud and costly ornament of regal halls; but 
our little marine weaver, as the author of ‘‘ Excursions to 
Arran” has observed, derived no hints from the Gobelins, 
nor from the workmen of Arras, nor from those of Athens, 
neither from the earliest tapissiers of the East. From the 
time that Noah’s ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, 
the forefathers of the beautiful little limas constructed their 
coral cottages, and lined them with well-wrought tapestry 
in the peaceful bay of Lamlash. 

Plants pertaining to the family of Rhodomelee are in 
general slight and elegant, often feathery and brightly 
tinted ; and the sites they occupy are not unfrequently in 
accordance with their delicately-ramified fronds. Thus the 
smooth Rytiphlea (Rytiphlea complanata) is found amid 
the loveliest of ocean scenery, on the pebbly beds of clear 
rock basins, exposed at low-water to full sunshine. Harvey 
speaks of having noticed this plant in considerable abun- 
dance at Miltown Malbay, where it clothed the rocky base 
of a tide-pool four or five yards in diameter, and from three 
to six inches deep. The collector of marine plants will do 
well to remember that the species, unless allowed to remain 
for some hours in fresh water, will not only stain the paper 
of a dull brown colour, but turn black and rigid. 

Few, perchance, of the elegant family of Polysiphonia 
are more pleasing than the violet-coloured, with its bushy 
and feathery branches and closely-connected fronds, of 
which each division becomes more slender, till it terminates 
in a number of fine ramuli, crowned with a tuft of fibres. 


The colour is brown-red, more or less purple, with soft 


irregular cells, and thus presenting an interesting type of its 
widely-diffused brotherhood. The Violaceaextends through- 
out the shores of Northern Europe, and is found on most of 
our British and Irish coasts, near low-water mark. Torbay 
and Salcombe, with Falmouth Harbour, and Carnarvon, are 
the favourite growing-places of this most interesting species. 
The fibrous-branched, which ranges throughout the Atlantic 


72 HANDY BOOK OF 


shores of Europe, is also common to our coasts, on rocks and 
mussels, in places subject to the ebbing of the tide. Beau- 
tiful in its watery locality, and affording a pleasing contrast 
to such green sea-weeds as grow: contiguous; its brownish 
red branches appear, when covered with ee as if 
crowned with tufts of golden fruit. 

Another of this interesting brotherhood, the parasitic 
Polysiphonia, grows, as its name implies, on different marine 
productions: such especially as take root at the limit of low- 
water mark; occasionally even at the depth of fifteen 
fathoms. Hence it is that the Parasitica remained un- 
noticed, till within a comparatively recent period, and can 
hardly be obtained except by dredging ; for who may readily 
examine the perpendicular sides or ledges of marine rocks? 
Yet, were it possible to explore the growing-places of this 
interesting species, we should often find them on marine 
ledges, covered with the Corallina officinalis, to which they 
cling like the lesser Dodder, that bright red cobweb-looking 
plant, which conceals, as with a gauze mantle, bushes of 
juniper or gorse. I have seen that piant on the wild sea- 
cliffs of Mort—a place rarely visited, and yet but a few miles 
distant from Ilfracombe; and deep beside the basement of 
these cliffs grew, most probably, its oceanic representative ; 
for the parasitic Polysiphonia extends from the Orkneys to 
Cornwall, and is nowhere more abundant than on the Ayr- 
shire coast at Arran, and along the shores of Devonshire, 
At Sidmouth, also, and at Torbay, on rocks, and stones, and 
smaller Algz, grows the elongated, a beautiful marine plant, 
which equally diversifies the coasts of France and the Adri- 
atic. Deciduous trees, when seen in spring and autumn, 
are not more dissimilar in their appearance than specimens 
of the elongated when collected at different seasons. In 
spring, and during the early months of summer, its branches 
are clothed with numerous pencils of delicate soft rose -tinted, 
or blood-red ramuli; at a later period these fall away, and 
such plants as are collected in September or October are — 


MARINE BOTANY, 73 


usually unadorned; the larger branches alone remain, and 
these, in their loneliness and rigidity, with broken points 
and spine-like terminations, have little semblance to the 
plant of summer. But with the coming back of spring, 
attended by her mild sea-dove, and birds from far-oif 
lands, the elongated is seen reclothed with bright-red tufts 
—fresh, vigorous, and beautiful, and expanding on its 
pebbly bed, above which the waters plash and sparkle, 
and give additional brilliancy to the plant that glows 
beneath. 

The Griffith polysiphonia, of which the specific name 
commemorates its first discovery by Mrs. Griffith at Torquay, 
subsequently in the isle of Portland, is often found on the 
south coasts of England, growing upon the smaller Algz 
between tide-mark. The geographic distribution of this 
plant has hitherto eluded the researches of botanists, al- 
though its distinctiveness from others of the name consists 
in a distinctly-pointed stem, with straight tubes, as also by 
a full red hue, inclining to brown when dry. Far, however, 
as the researches of botanists extend, the Griffith has been 
traced along the Atlantic shores of North America, of France 
and Spain, though nowhere more abundant than in the 
Mediterranean, and especially at Venice, where it recalls to 
mind the thought of a modern traveller, when, standing beside 
the pyramids of Egypt, he looked upon the grasses which 
grew around, verdant as when the proud dynasty of the 
Pharaohs filled the throne of that country, and contrasted the 
permanency of Nature with the mutability of earthly great- 
ness. And thus it is as regards that ancient city, beneath 
the shadows of whose crumbling ai le grows unheeded the 
elegant Griffithsiana, 


‘In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more, 
And silent rows the songless gondolier ; 
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear., _ 
Those days are gone—but beauty still is here, 


"4 HANDY BOOK OF 


States fall and fade—but Nature does not die. 
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 
The pleasant place of all festivity, 

The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.” 


In England, Plymouth is recorded as the favourite habi- 
tat of this commemorative species, of which the hue and 
form is little in accordance with the mud-covered banks or 
rocks, in bogs or estuaries, whereon it flourishes. Nosmall 
degree of intrepidity is required to venture ofttimes in places 
which seem unlikely to reward the exertions of the marine 
botanist ; and yet many a beauteous specimen grows best 
on sites which have nought of outward beauty wherewith to 
allure the passer-by. 

The wandering scarlet-robed Dasya finds its home on the 
wide waters, or else is borne from out the depths of ocean, 
for nowhere has its habitat been discovered. The arrival 
of this plant upon our shores announces that either summer 
or autumn is begun; for punctual as the rising of their 
constellation, or the departure of migratory birds, first one, 
and then another, is deposited by the receding billows. 
Marine botanists hail them with great pleasure, for Dasyas 
are somewhat rare; and happy are those who may number 
these children of the deep among their specimens. 

This feathery-looking plant, the loveliest of ocean tribes, 
seems in unison with cloudless skies and summer tides, 
when scarcely a breath of wind is stirring, and ocean gently 
swells and ripples, and spreads its gifts upon the sand. But 
equally in autumn comes the fairy-formed Dasya, with its 
brightness and its beauty, riding on those vexed and chafed 
surges, which the equinoctial gales have lashed into fury. 
To this there is no parallel among terrestrial vegetation. 
Such plants as grow on windy heights are generally pro- 
cumbent, or cling tenaciously to their bleak habitats, or 
else they hasten under ground at the approach of winter. 
Forest trees have roots with which to grapple the strong 
rocks whereon they grow, but the delicate Dasya has no 


MARINE BOTANY. 75 


such provision. Her home is on the waters, often when 
thunders are abroad, and fierce winds contend for mastery, 
when, too, the raging and recoiling of huge waves against 
their barrier rocks is still louder and more terrible. Many 
a gallant vessel, ably commanded and well manned, with 
its strong ribs of oak, and dauntless hearts on board, are 
wrecked by their fury, while the small sea-weed rides 
uninjured; and he who, sleepless and tossing on his bed, 
listens with dread to the deep thundering roar of ocean, 
mindful of wrecks on the wide expanse, may find next day 
this small plant lying uninjured on the sand. 

Associations therefore of minuteness and magnificence, of 
helplessness and terror, are blended with the wandering 
Dasya. Somewhat of mysteriousness mingles also, for its 
home may be on the ever-moving surface of the billows— 

Up and down, 
Up and down, 
On the feathery crest of the wild sea-foam. 
Bathing now in the purest light, 
Hurrying now through the gloom of night, 
Where the surges rage and foam. 


Or perchance it grows besides one of those clear streams that 


gush from out the bed of ocean—small sea-streams winding 
in their pureness and their clearness, having nought in 
common with the briny waters of the deep. This plant 
may grow beside them, or it may be in one of those 
untrodden caves where the sea-star sheds her mild light ; 
a living lamp gleaming in the darkness, and flinging a soft 
radiance through groves of coral. Such may be her native 
growing-places, and as the world is full of symbols designed 
to awaken thoughts concerning things that are invisible, 
the coming up of this delicately-formed sea-weed from out 


_ her dwelling in the fathomless abyss, or else her wondrous 


meter ye 


preservation beneath crushing rains, and amid the utmost 
fury of fierce winds, is one of Nature’s lessons whereby to 


gladden or console the heart of man. 


96 HANDY BOOK OF 


CHAPTER IX. 


WE now pass on to a class of marine plants which botanists — 
in former days thought unworthy of the least attention. 
True it is that, with few exceptions, they have’ little to 
attract attention when compared with their beauteous rela- 
tives, the family of Rhodospermer; yet with them are 
associated powers of locomotion, that occur about the time 
of sunrise, and cease at a later period—a natural phenome- 
non, pertaining to plants of a simple structure and organi- 
zation, which baffles the researches of scientific ‘inquirers, 
and often leaves the naturalist in doubt whether he is 
observing the motions of an animalcule, or those’of a plant. 


*¢ Proud reasoning man, thy soaring wing 
Would hurry towards infinity ; 
And yet the meanest, feeblest thing, 
Is too sublime, too vast for thee: 
And all thy vain imagining we see 
Lost in the smallest speck.”’ 


And how vividly is the observation of the poet brought to 
mind when considering the curious formation and probable 
use of the Codium tomentosum, or Woolly Codium, which 
rather resembles a sponge than Algz, and which clings so 
firmly to its native rock as scarcely to be detached! This 
small plant is the home of a rare and lovely mollusc, which 
has some important purpose to fulfil in its unobtrusive 
sphere; and hence the power of adhesion possessed by the 
Codium in its domicile, lest the rushing of fierce waves 
should frustrate that destined purpose. 

‘Order is Heaven’s first law;”’ manifested equally in the 
motions of the planets as in the arrangement of vegetable 
tribes. Four members only pertain to the small division — 
Codium, and yet the growing-place of each one is different : 
the adherens, a perennial plant, adheres, as its name im=- — 


= ae. oS, 
Ear, 
= * i 5 


~ 


MARINE BOTANY 77 


plies, to marine rocks, where it resembles fragments of 
bright green velvet ; the amphibium is found on turf banks, 
at extreme high-water mark; the bursa, of which the 
globular frond forms a spongy and hollow ball, spreads over 
rocks in its favourite localities—the coast of Sussex, with 
those of Cornwall, Torquay, and Belfast; while the cylin- 
drical and forked tomentosum dwells apart on rocks, and in 
rock-pools near high-water mark. 

Such also is the habitat of the feathery dryopsis, one of the 
most attractive in this sea-green family, The colour is 
rich and glossy, the form symmetrical, and the whole plant 
resembles the feathers of a green parrot. And although less 
beautiful, being slenderer, more branchy, and of a yellower 
green, the B. hypnoides looks well in its watery location of 
some rock-pool, or when adhering, beyond tide-mark, to a 
widely-spreading and olive-brown sea-belt, the haunt of 
beautiful molluscs, that are seen gliding among them; or 
the fixed habitation of numerous zoophytes, among which 

_ the Flustra membranacea often covers it with fine, silvery, 
_ lace-like webs, and the Lipralia hyalina and annulata richly 
dot its leathery substance. 


‘¢ Huge ocean shows within his yellow strand 
A habitation marvellously plann’d 
For life to occupy.”’ 


Look narrowly into one of those clear rock-pools, near 
low-water mark, which are left by the receding of the tide, 
_ over which a steep mural cliff throws its shadow. Such is 
_ the frequent habitat of the rich, glossy, full-green Clado- 
_ phora falcata, with its curled branches, and delicate ramula 
bending on one side. This plant, as yet without any as- 
_ signed geographic distribution, and known principally in 
_ the west of Ireland, where it affects the rocks outside Dingle 
_ Harbour, is singularly beautiful, both in form and hue, and 
affords a pleasing object for the microscope. 
The C. Hutchinsie, found also on the rocky bottoms of 


78 HANDY BOOK OF 


clear tide- pools, is one of those memorial plants which call — 
to mind the unwearied exertions of botanists, who first 
sought for them in places from which many would have 
shrunk. Such was the late Miss Hutchins, of Ballytichy ; 
and fresh as the vivid and beauteous glaucous greenness of 
the bright Hutchinsiz, when seen in her ocean bed, is the 
memory of one who loved to explore the wild haunts and 
rocks of her locality, and whose name is held in grateful 
remembrance by botanists of all countries. To her the 
botany of Ireland owes much, especially the eryptogamic — 
branch, which had been little explored; and hence the 
genus Hutchinsiz, consisting of various Alpine species of 
cruciform plants, is dedicated to her memory by R. Brown, 
the prince of botanists. Hence, also, Agardhi, the great 
Swedish algologist, selected the beautiful and extensive | 
genus now called Polysiphonia, with a similar design. Nor 
was it solely to marine plants that her researches were ex- 
tended ; every department of Natural History was studied 
with equal avidity. The fishermen often saw her at early 
dawn seeking among the deposits of ocean for whatever of 
‘‘ beautiful or new” had been left upon the sand; and the 
peat-cutter, on many a bright morning, when dew lay 
heavy on the grass, and light wreathing mists floated on his — 
native hills, saw her light form tripping from glen to moor 
in quest of insects or of flowers. 


‘¢ In every season of the beauteous year, , 
Her eye was open, and, with studious love, 
Read the divine Creator in his works, 

Chiefly in thee, sweet Spring, when every nook, 
Some latent beauty to her wakeful search 
Presented, some sweet flowers, or virtual plants ; 
In every native of the hill and vale 

She found attractions; and where beauty fail’d, 
Applauded fragrance, or commended use.” 


The geographic range of the spreading Cladophora, which — 
closely resembles the Hutchinsiz, extends to the Mediter- — 


: 
é 


= 


MARINE BOTANY. 79 


ranean, and affects in England a similar locality. Those 
who seek on rocks, or in pellucid basins, for the elegant 
Hutchinsie, often regret to find the one, where they would 
gladly have hailed the other. When seen under water, the 
resemblance is considerable, both in form and hue, though, 
in general, the spreading Cladophora is a much larger and 
stronger plant. 

Equally abounding on all our rocky shores, from Orkney- 
to Cornwall, ranging also amid the wild wave’s play 
throughout the Atlantic coasts of Europe and North 
America, with those of the Baltic, Dr. Hooker speaks of the 
C. arcta, as growing profusely in the Falkland Islands, and 
he conjectures that it is distributed in all southern latitudes, 
wherever a similar climate prevails. ‘Those who seek for 
this rich deep-green and tufted species may generally find 
it on exposed submarine rocks, within the range of the tide, 
nearly at the limit of low-water mark; and in such places 
it often covers a considerable surface. When young, the 
colour is peculiarly vivid; and in spring, few objects are 
more attractive, on account of their lively green, and the 
fine, silky, silvery gloss with which the tips are adorned. 


~ But when old, the Arcta has little of outward beauty ; the 


branches become more or less membranaceous, the bright 


colour lingers only at their tips, and when the summer 


months verge on those of autumn, the whole plant becomes 
coarse and woolly, no trace remains of its youthful beauty ; 
and hence marine botanists, in former days, when the 
science was imperfectly understood, assumed that the Arcta, 
in its stages of growth and decay, were different plants, and 
gave them the names of Vaucherieformis and Centralis. 
The pellucid Cladophora clings, in its distinctiveness, to 
the bottom and sides of deep rock-pools, between tide-marks, 
in places which are not liable to be left dry by the receding 
of the tide. Though occasionally mistaken, at first sight, 
for others of the same tribe, it has yet one distinctive mark, 
in a single cell being found intervening between each fur- 


80 HANDY BOOK OF 


cation, No other British species regularly exhibits the © 
same peculiarity ; and equally curious is the fact that each 
cell is of extraordinary length—those in the lower portion 
being occasionally more than an inch in length, and bearing 

a great resemblance to the articulations of some grasses. 
This peculiarity of structure has, doubtless, an important 
reference to the watery locality of the pellucida, which ex- 
tends throughout the Atlantic shores of Europe and America, 
the Mediterranean, and Cape of Good Hope. 

Our rocky shores are also varied with the beautiful rock- 
adhering Cladophora, which extends throughout every Euro- 
pean coast, even into the belt of the Laminariz. Few 
plants are more dependant for their greenness andluxuriance 
on the ocean sites which they chance to occupy. Near high- 
water mark they present the aspect of plain-looking plants, 
closely tufted, and of a cloudy and disagreeable greyish- 
green; but when growing in deep water they are beautiful, 
and reflect glaucous tints, and, according to thcir ocean site, 
so is their power to attract the eye. Specimens gradually 
increase in luxuriance, and in the depth and purity of their 
rich dark-green hue, as they recede from high-water; and, 
were it possible to follow them where, as yet, the foot of 
man has never trod, we should, perhaps, find that none of 
their ocean brethren may vie with the rock-adhering Clado- 
phora. Those ancient botanists, Theophrastus and Dios- 
corides, though, in general, regardless of marine plants, 
mentioned this handsome species as diversifying the coasts 
of Lesbos, and those of the Mediterranean over-against 
Cyprus. And still the same plant, with its deep-green tufts, 
and short filaments, curled and matted together, is seen in 
the same locality, as also on the Atlantic shores of Europe, 
and the Baltic. But, though attaining its full development 
in clear bright waters, the rock-adhering Cladophora was 
discovered by Hawkins, on submarine peat, at Birturbui 
Bay, in Connemara; it grew in patches on the naked sur-_ 
face, just within the limit of the tide—a strange habitat, 


yr, . 


ie 


MARINE BOTANY. 81 


and most unlike its general haunts, yet showing that the 
species was struggling hard to extend its place of growth. 


“Tt seems as if these wondrous plants had thought, 
And power to choose out places for their growth: 
As if they sought to bless the homeliest haunts, 
And clothe the rock with beauty; bidding men, 
Passing perchance in haste, to pause, and think 
Of Him who made them, and look scorn no longer 
On lowlier ones, whom the Most High hath placed 
In fitting stations.” 


The trivial name of Linum aptly expresses the peculiar 
character of this curious plant. Its pale or dark-green 
floating filaments vary from a few inches to several feet in 
length, and are disposed in strata, lying one above the other. 
Lowly is its habitat, whether in salt-water ditches on our 
coasts, or among rocks and huge stones along the shores of 
Europe ; and yet, how much of: beauty is discovered in this 
humble weed! how curiously jointed is each filament with 
dense articulations, containing fluid that ministers, without 
doubt, to the exigencies of the parent plant! 

A peculiarly pale, or rather a fine yellow-green colour, 
and a bushy mode of growth, distinguish the soft and mem- 
branaceous C. /etivirens, which is found on rocks and stones 
throughout the Atlantic shores of Europe and North America, 
but uniformly in the open sea, and beyond the infiuence of 
fresh water. The C. glomerata, on the contrary, is seen in 
rills and rivers remote from the sea, and often in such as 
have their source in mountainous regions. 

Assigned, with their brethren, to embellish the beautiful 
solitudes of nature, on sea-rocks around which the breakers 
lift their crests of broken foam; to call forth thoughts of 
love and thankfulness in those who visit the wild sea-shore, 
when looking over its might of waters, and contrasting them 
with the minuteness or the beauty of marine productions, 
different members of the family of Cladophora are found in 


@ almost every part of the known world, with the exception 


82 HANDY BOOK OF 


of the C. glaucescens, a species, as yet, considered peculiar 
to the British Isles, and of which, in Devonshire, Torquay, 
and Falmouth—in Ireland, Portmarnock, and the rocks 
beyond Kingstown Harbour—are mentioned as places of 
growth. Algologists, though little skilled in the peculiari- 
ties of the Cladophora tribe, may readily distinguish this 
elegantly tufted species by its glaucous hue when fresh, by 
the slenderness of its filaments, and the uniform length of 
the articulations throughout the stem. The wncialis, com- 
mon to the shores of Northern Europe, has also its peculiar 
characteristics, and, though resembling the Janosa more 
nearly than any other of our native species, yet forms more 
dense and rope-like tufts, which become inextricably woven. 
Its habitat affords another clue ; for it frequents rocky places, 
clinging to the surface of the rock, or nestling in the thin 
coating of sand which verges to the edge of low-water mark; 
while the /anosa, on the contrary, is almost uniformly para- 
sitic on other Alge, or else attached to pieces of wood, or 
the leaves of the Zostera. 


- Serres IT].—CHLonosPpERMEA. 
GRASS-GREEN SERIES, 


PLANTS growing in the sea, in fresh water, or in damp 
situations ; either filamentous, membranaceous, or shapeless ; 
either colourless, or, owing to the presence of an internal 
granular sporular mass, of a grass-green, very rarely purple 
or red colour. Fructification, green or purple sporules, 
either filling the frond, or collected into sporidia, rarely con- 
tained in external capsules.— Harvey. 


Famiry XVIII.—SIPHONEZ. 


LXXXV. Codium. Name from a Greek word signifying 
the skin of an animal. 


> 


MARINE BOTANY. 83 


1. Bursa, purse-shaped codium. 
2. Adherens, adhering. 

3. Tomentosum, woolly. 

4. Amphibium, amphibious. 


LXXXVI. Bryopsis. From two Greek words signifying the 
appearance of a moss. 
1. Plumosa, feathery bryopsis. 
2. Hypnoides, moss-formed. 


Bryorsis Prumosa. fPortincross, Ayrshire. Contributed by the 
Rev. D. Landsborough, A.L 8S. 


LXXXII. Vaucheria. Name given in honour of M. Vaucher, 
a distinguished naturalist, author of ‘‘ L’historie des 
Conferves d’Eau douce.”’ 

1. Submarina, submarine Vaucheria. 
2. Marina, marine. 
3. Velutina, veiled. 


Faminy XIX.—CoNFERVE. 


Plants growing in the sea, or in fresh water; filament- 
ous, articulate, without defined gelatine, 


84 
LXXXVIII. 


HANDY BOOK OF 


Cladophora. Signification of the name, 
branch-bearing ; Conferva being retained for the species 


with simple filaments. 


. Brownz, the Brown cladophora. 
. Pellucida, pellucid. 

. Rectangularis, right angle. 

. Maccalana, the McCalla. 

. Hutchinsia, the Hutchins. 

. Diffusa, the diffuse. 

. Nuda, the spread-open. 

. Rupestris, dark green rock. 

. Letivirens, light-green bushy. 


Flexuosa, curled. 


. Gracilis, slender. 

. Rudolphiana, the Rudolph. 
. Refracta, broken. 

. Albida, whitish. 

. Lanosa, woolly. 

. Uncralis, inch-breadth. 

. Arcta, arctic. 

. Glaucescens, sea-green. 


Faleata, hooked. 


CrapoPHorA ARoTA. Kingstown. Contributed by N. T. C., 


Dublin. 


MARINE BOTANY, 85 


LXXXIX, Rhizogonium. Name derived from the root-like 
form of the branches. 
1. Riparium, river-bank rhizogonium. 


XC. Conferva. Name from conferruminare, to consolidate. 
1. Arenicola, sand-growing conferva, 
2. Avenosa, sandy. 

3. Lettorea, sea-shore, 

4, Linum, flax. 

5. Sutoria, stitch-like. 

6. TZortuosa, twisted. 

7. Implexa, plaited. 

8. Melagonum, dark offspring. 
9. Area, sand-loving. 
10. Coldabens, prostrate. 
11. Bangiordes, the Bangor. 
12. Youngana, the Young. 


Faminy XX.—ULVACE. 


Plants growing in the sea, ofa membranaceous substance, 
and imperfectly reticulated structure. 

Frond, remarkably thin, either a tubular, or flat-filiform, 
or expanded membrane ; colourless, or, owing to the pre- 
sence of fructification, of agreen or purple, (rarely) pinkish 
colour. 

Fructification, minute green or purple granules, scattered 
through the frond, or arranged in fours.— Harvey. 


XCI. Porphyra. Purple, from the colour of most of the 
species, 
1, Laciniata, cleft porphyra. 
2. Vulgaris, common. 
3. Miniata, red tinted. 


86 HANDY BOOK OF 


XCII. Bangia. In honour of Hoffman Bang. 
1. Fusco-purpurea, brown-purplish Bangiae 
2. Ciliaris, the eye-lash. 
3. Elegans, elegant. 


Unva Linza.—Harv. Phy. Brit. 


XCIII. Enteromorpha, Name signifies, in the form of an 
entrail. 

. Cornucopia, the cornucopia enteromorpha. 

. Intestinalis, intestinal-like. 

. Compressa, compressed. 

. Linkiana, the Linkiana. 

. Lrecta, erect. 

Clathrata, cross -barred. 


Donk © to 


MARINE BOTANY; 87 


1. Hopkirki, the Hopkirk. 
8. Ramulosa, small-branched. 
9, Percursa, running, 


XCIV. Ulva. Name from the Celtic word ul, water. 
1, Latissima, wide ulva. ‘‘ Green Stoke.” 


2. Lactuca, lettuce. ‘* Oyster Green.” 
3. Linza, the Linza. 


Famity XXI.—OscILLatTortm.* 


XOV. Rivularia. In allusion to the fresh-water habitats 
of many of the species. 
1, Nitida, shining rivularia. 
2. Applanata, flat. 
3. Altra, black. 
4, Plicata, folded. 


XCVI. Schizothriz. Name derived from two Greek words, 
signifying to divide and a thread. 


1. Cresswelliz, the Cresswell schizothrix. 


XCVII. Calothrix. Signifying beautiful hair, the filaments 
being very slender and delicate. 
1. Confervicola, conferya-like calothrix. 
2. Luteola, yellowish. 
3. Scopulorum, clustered. 
4. Fasciculata, bundle-like. 
5. Pannosa, wrinkled. 
6. Hydnoides, swelling-formed. 
7. Cespitula, turf-like. 


XCVIII. Microcoleus. Name from two Greek words, sig- 
nifying a small branch. 


* The plants of the two remaining Families being generally 
Microscopic, we haye not illustrated them. 


‘88 HANDY BOOK OF 


1. Marinus; marine microcoleus, 
2. Anguiformis, snake-like. 


XCIX. Lyngbya. In honour of H. @. Lyngbye, author of 
an excellent work on the Alge of Denmark. 

. Majuscula, larger Lyngbya. 

. Ferruginia, rusty-iron coloured. 

. Carmichael, the Carmichael. 

. Flacca, frail. 

. Speciosa, beautiful. 


crn HB OO be 


C. Oscillatoria. Name from a Latin word, signifying to 
oscillate, like the pendulum of a clock, from the motion 
of the filaments. 

1, Lnttorals, shore-loving oscillatoria. 
2. Spiralis, spiral. 


CI. Spiralina. Diminutive of spira, a twist or curl. 
1. Zenuissima, most slender spiralina. 


Famity XXII.—NostocHINEZ. 


CII, Monormia, signifying one-lined. 
1. Intricata, intricate monormia. 


CIII. Spherozyga. Compounded of two Greek words, sig- 
nifying a sphere and a yoke. 
1. Carmichael, the Carmichael spherozyga. 
2. Thwaitesit, the Thwaite. 
3. Broomei, the Broom. 
4. Berkeleyi, the Berkeley. 
5. Ralfsu, the Ralf. 


CIV. Spermosira. From two words, signifying a seed, and 
a chain. 
1, Littorea, shore-loying spermosixa, 


MARINE BOTANY. 89 


CHAPTER X. 


Tae land has its flowers: they adorn our gardens; they 
exhale their fragrance on the skirts of the woods; they defy 
the winds, which blow around the lofty mountain-tops ; 
they hide themselves in rifts of the rock, or spring up amid 
ruins; wherever a plant can take root, Flora makes her 
appearance with her splendid gifts. 

But ocean, too, has its radiated flowers—its asters and 
pinks—and far more wondrous than those of terra firma ; 
for, being gifted with animal life, they can open and close 
at will. In-our seas, the Sea Anemones (Actinie) princi- 


SEA ANEMONE. 


pally display all the glories of the rainbow on the submarine 
plains; but between the tropics, the gregarious reef-forming 
Corals cover the ocean-bed with a gay carpet. 

The glorious picture whieh the Astree and Meandrines 
unfold on the bed of the Red Sea, aroused in Ehrenberg the 
greatest admiration, so that he exclaimed enthusiastically, 
“Where is the flowery paradise which, in variety and 
beauty, ¢an rival these liying wonders of the ocean ?” 


90 HANDY BOOK OF 


Both the Sea Anemones and Corals belong to the widely 
-ramifying class of true Polypes—animals of simple struc- 
ture, which stand almost on the last stage of animalization. 
All varieties possess in common a sac-shaped body, sur- 
rounding a cylindrical cavity, which opens at top into a 
wide mouth. This is surrounded by a fringe of tentacles, 
which extend and contract voluntarily, and carry food to 
the hungry predacious animal. Generally, firmly attached 
to their place of birth, or at the most, capable of only 
limited motion, the Polypes are unable to procure their food 
by fighting, personal strength, or cunning. Just as the 
helpless young of the higher animals are fed by their 
parents, they exist on what their kind mother, the ocean, 
conveys to them. 

Their prehensile organg are traps, and not weapons ; but, 
owing to the countless number of creatures with which the 
ocean swarms, especially on the coasts and in the shallow 
water where they have taken up their abode, the Polypes 
are never in want of famous food. No lazzarone could 
wish a pleasanter mode of life than that of a Polype, for 
in it the dolce far mente is found in its most beautiful 
form. . 

In order that the capturing apparatus may serve its pur- 
pose perfectly, it is provided with countless small, needle- 
like weapons, which not merely wound the little animals 
that come within reach, but also poison them with an acid 
fluid. Woe to the small crustacean, or the tiny fish, which 
comes too near the outspread, radiated crown of a Sea 
Anemone: surrounded in an instant by a hundred arms, it 
is suddenly stunned, and carried without further ceremony 
to the gaping abyss. 

It is easily to be understood, that animals which require 
such a slight expenditure of intelligence for existence, have 
no nerves, or, at any rate, in a most rudimentary state—a 
negative happiness, for which many a sensitive, hysterical 
person, might possibly envy them, 


MARINE BOTANY, 91 


They neither hear nor see: and, indeed, why should 
they ? Owing to their impossible or defective locomotion, 
the possession of the higher faculties would be of no aid to 
them, to escape the attacks of their enemies just as little as 
it was necessary to facilitate their capture of booty, which 
comes to them spontaneously, without their having occasion 
to see or hear. The sense of feeling, which is mainly con- 
centrated in their prehensile apparatus, and at whose signal 
they cling round their prey convulsively, or hide them- 
selves, with lightning speed, on hostile contact, was evidently 
sufficient for all the demands of their limited existence ; 
the more so, that it is extraordinarily sensitive of various 
irritating causes. The Sea Anemone feels the light: be- 
neath a bright, clear sky, it unfolds all its beauty ; but ifa 
dark cloud obscure the brilliancy of the sun, the radiated 
crown is contracted, and the flower becomes a shapeless 
mass. But we should greatly err, if we thought it capable 
of feeling pain. 

Only a few Polypes are simple and capable of movement, 
and among these are the Sea Anemones. Here we see a 
solitary flower, which springs from a simple stalk, containing 
astomach. With their broad base, the Anemones attach 
themselves so firmly to stones and rocks, that they can only 
be separated from them with great difficulty, though, if they 
feel a fancy for moving, they can change their locality in 
various ways. They glide slowly and almost imperceptibly 
along the stalk; or, turning over, they use the tentacles as 
feet, or, blowing out the body with water, lessen its specific 
gravity, and allow themselves to be carried by the current 
whither it may please. 

Their tenacity of life is extraordinary; and for this 
quality, too, they may be envied by all those who do not 
at all like the idea of a separation from the pleasant habit 
of existing and working. Let them be dipped in water, hot 
enough to blister the hand—let them be frozen and thawed, 
or place them in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump— 

G 


92 HANDY BOOK OF 


their powerful vital principle is victorious over all such 
trials. If the tentacles are cut off, they grow again ; if once 
more removed, a fresh garland is produced. If the animal 
be cut in two, after a while the lower part of the body puts 
forth new arms, nearly as they were prior to the operation ; 
while the upper portion continues to swallow food, just as if 
nothing had occurred. At first, like Munchausen’s horse, 
it allows the food to fall out again through the open 


POLYPODOM. 


end; but it soon learns to retain and digest it. Johnson | 


(‘‘ British Zoophites’’) even mentions an instance, in which 
such an amputated upper body, instead of healing at the 
base, formed there a new mouth, with tentacles; so that, 


in this way, a truly gifted double-eater was produced, 


which could capture and devour food at both extremities. 
But these otherwise indestructible animals die at once 
when dropped into fresh water—for them, as for many other 
marine creatures, as rapid a poison as Prussic acid to man. 
Sea Anemones are found in every sea, and the German 
Ocean has also several splendid varieties ; among others, the 


—. ” 


MARINE BOTANY. 93 


purple 4. eguina, which lives on rocks and’ reefs, and the 
white 4, plumosa, whose disk, often measuring four inches 
in diameter, is covered with close, short, brilliantly white 
tentacles; but the largest and finest are found in the 
Tropical Ocean. ‘Their colour is as various as the arrange- 
ment of their tentacles: there are some bright red and 
green, light blue and orange-coloured, yellow and milky 
white. At times, the tentacles from a Gorgon’s head of 


GROUP OF ACTINIZ. 


long thick fibres, covered with the softest velvety lustre ; in 
others, they represent a forest of thin threads. 

This race is also compelled to pay tribute to the human 
palate. Thus, the Actinia fordaica, a handsome variety, 
with scarlet tentacles, found in the Mediterranean, is con- 
sidered a great delicacy in Italy, and thousands of them are 
eaten among the other frutti del mare. 

The young of the Actiniew, which are produced from small 
gelatinous eggs, remain at first in the maternal cavity, 
where they find a suflicieney of food, and are gradually 


94 HANDY BOOK OF 


converted, without any further remarkable changes, into 
the permanent form. At birth, or on emerging into the 
water, the only difference consists in the smaller number 
of tentacles, and the partition wall of the cavity. 

The Lucernariz, distinguished by a remarkable graceful- 
ness of form, are closely allied to the Actinie. The bell- 
shaped body rises on a narrow stalk, which is usually found 
attached to smaller marine plants on a rocky soil. The 
tentacles are arranged, at regular intervals, in tufts round 
the edge. The crystalline animal reflects green or red tints, 
and can moye with tolerable rapidity through the water, by 
alternate contraction and dilatation 

The Sea-pens, and other related varieties, such as the 
Virgularie, Veritelle, &c., seem capable of change of loca- 
lity—they are composite, coralline polypes—which are not 
firmly attached to the ground, but only have the stalk 
thrust into the loose sand. The Sea-pens possess the faculty 
of iridescence. If irritated at any place, the light flashes 
from one branch and one polype to the other, till it reaches 
the outermost point, while all the animals beneath the irri- 
tated spot remain in darkness. If the Polypodum be thrown 
into a vessel of sweet water, it emits sparks from every 
branch, which produce a magnificent sight. 

These simple or gregarious families of Polypes, like all 
those found in our waters, are insignificant when compared 
with the reef-forming Corals of the hot zone. These are 
propagated partly by producing small, simple, globular or 
oval larvee, capable of independent movement by the posses- 
sion of an external coat, which swim about for a period free, 
till they attach themselves with one pole of their body, and 
lay the foundation of a future Polyp colony. Partly, too, 
they multiply themselves, like plants, by gemmation, and 
form in this way numerous societies, whose individual 


members are most closely connected. Each individual has 


its special mouth and tentacles, and its own stomach; but 
it has no other specialties; for it is connected with its 


Tae 


95 


MARINE BOTANY. 


STRUCTURE OF POLYPODOMS, 


brethren by interminable canals and webs, so that the juices 


This must, 


each Polype evolves benefit the entire hive. 


96 HANDY BOOK OF 


therefore, be regarded as a living layer of animal matter, 
which is fed by numerous mouths, and supported by an 
equal number of stomachs. It deserves honourable men- 
tion, that the firm calcareous skeleton is always covered by 
the common skin of the colony, through whose numerous 
openings a rich flora of radiated flowers buds. 

As the Lithophytes, or Stone Corals, have a growth re- 
sembling that of plants, it must excite no surprise to find 


LITHOPHYTA, 


that they imitate all the forms of vegetation. We find 
among them mosses and creepers, shrubs and trees, which 
attain a height of six to eight feet; or graceful vases and 
symmetrical cupolas, which often have a diameter of ten and 
even twenty feet. 

But all these variously-developed forms spring originally 
from a single spray, which, proceeding bud by bud, accord- 
ing to its peculiar nature, forms the broad leaf, the thin 
spray, or the hemisphere. 

It may be said of the tropical Zoophytes, which form the 
wall-like Coral-reef, and in the truest sense of the term, 
that they build for eternity. The skeleton of the higher 
animals disappears from the earth in a few years; but the 
stone skeleton of the Polype remains firmly rooted to the 


D4 
a 
ce * 


MARINE BOTANY. 97 


spot which it occupied during life, and serves a new gene- 
ration as the foundation on which it continues building. As 
a general rule, all the lower strata of the larger Polypodous 
aggregates are dead masses. Thus, the larger hemispherical 
domes of the Astres are covered with a living layer, which 
is only half an inch thick; and, in some of the Porites of 
equal dimensions, the entire mass is found to be lifeless, 
except a thin external crust of about one-sixth of an inch 
in thickness. 

We are amazed at the size of the Pyramids and primeval 
temples which a long-vanished race piled up on the shores 
of the Nile; but what are the colossal structures of the 
Pharaohs when compared with the mighty walls which are 
erected by the small weak zoophytes ? 

According to Darwin, to whom we owe the talented ex- 
planation of the strange forms the Coral-reefs offer, these 
animal edifices are naturally divided into three classes, 
while their physiological mode of structure always remains 
the same. 

One description of reef is immediately connected with the 
continental or island shores (shore reefs, fringing reefs); to 
this variety belong all the Coral-banks of the Red Sea, 
which Ehrenberg and Hemprich investigated during eight 
months. 

A second variety forms, at a greater distance from land, 
_a wall, which either runs along the coasts (barrier reefs), or 
encloses a central island (encircling reef), Among these is 
the great Barrier-reef which lies opposite the north-eastern 
coast of Australia. According to Flinders, it has a length 
of nearly a thousand miles, and runs parallel with the coast 
at a distance of twenty to thirty miles, which, in some parts, 
extends to fifty or seventy. 

The huge arm of the sea, formed in this manner, has an 
average depth of ten to twenty fathoms, which at one end, 
however, increases to sixty, while the open sea beyond the 
reef is of unfathomable depth a very short distance off. The 


93 HANDY BOOK OF 


superficial width of the reef varies in different parts from 
some hundred feet to a mile. Probably this coralline wall, 
whose dimensions, it will be seen, laugh to scorn every 
human construction, is the most magnificent erection of the 
sort which the present epoch of creation has to offer us. 
There is a large number of these island-girdling reefs, 


especially in the Pacific. Such, among others, is Tahiti, _ 


the Queen of Polynesia, with its girdle of palms and bread- 
fruit trees. This paradisaical mountainous island rises in 
the midst of a calm sea, which the Coral wall cuts off from 
the violent surf of the ocean. 

The encircling reefs are found at avery great distance 
from the island they protect. Thus, the distance between 
New Caledonia and its coralline wall is no less than one 
. hundred and forty miles. 

The third variety of Coral-banks (Atolls, or Lagoon islands) 
differs from the former, in the fact that it does not enclosea 
verdant isle, but merely a central sea, or great expanse of 
water. Such Atolls are found close together in what is 
called the Coral Sea, between the northern coast of New 
Holland, New Caledonia, the Solomon’s Islands, and the 
Louisiadian Archipelago; in the low archipelago, formed of 
eighty islands; at the Feejee, Ellice, and Gilbert Islands; 
in the Indian Ocean, to the north-east of Madagascar, under 
the name of the Atoll Group of Sayo de Malha; at the Mar- 
shall Islands (Radack and Ralick), to the east of the La- 
drones ; in the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagos, and in 
many other parts of the tropical ocean. 

Between the tropics, the constant action of the trade winds 
on the boundless surface of the sea produces breakers far 
more terrible than those of our temperate zone, and of inces- 
sant fury. It is impossible to regard these hoarsely-growl- 
ing waves without entertaining the conviction that even the 
hardest rock must eventually yield to such a force. But 
the low coralline banks victoriously resist such attacks; for 
here a new living power enters the lists against blind 


MARINE BOTANY. 99 


physical force. The waves may tear from the Coral-reef 
thousands of blocks; but what does this signify against the 
piled-up labours of countless myriads of little architects, 
who are engaged day and night in extracting calcareous 
atoms from the foaming waves, and arranging them in 
systematical constructions? Thus we see the vital strength 
that exists in the soft gelatinous body of a Polype conquer- 
ing the gigantic power of an Ocean, which neither the 
works of human skill nor those of inanimate nature can 
withstand. 

The Reef-forming Corallines, which is this way defy the 
utmost efforts of the waves, are, in other respects, extremely 
delicate and sensitive. They require a warmish water for 
existence, and only inhabit those seas whose temperature 
never sinks below 60°. 

The effect of the ocean-currents has, consequently, a 
great influence on their appearance. At the Gallipagos, 
which lie below the Equator, but are exposed to the chilling 
influence of the Peruvian Stream, no Corals are found; 
while, favoured by the warm Gulph Stream, they are seen 
round the Bermudas, although these islands lie from four to 
five degrees beyond the usual boundaries of the Coral reef. 

A clear unpolluted saline water is also indispensably 
necessary for their existence. They shun slimy, sandy 
coasts ; and opposite flowing rivers there are corresponding 
holes in the reefs they throw up. 

There are also many unexplained circumstances which, in 
some parts of the sea, favour the congregation of building 
Polypodoms, and in others compel their entire absence. 
Why, for instance, the north-western coast of Africa, St. 
Helena, Ascension, San Fernando, the Cape Verde islands, 
where the temperature is most suitable, are entirely free 
from Corals, which are found so frequently on the eastern 
coasts of Zanzibar and in the adjacent seas, no one can 
satisfactorily explain. As the sea is frequently fathomless 
at a short distance from the Coral-reef—as off the Keeling 


100 HANDY BOOK OF 


islands, where Captain Fitzroy found no bottom with a line 
of 7,200 feet, scarce a mile from land—it was formerly 
believed that the Lithophytes built up their precipitous 
walls from the depths of ocean; an opinion which is no 
longer tenable, since Quoy and Gaymard, Ehrenberg, 
Darwin, and other distinguished naturalists, have proved 
that the depth at which the reef-forming Corallines can 

exist (Astrew, Porites, Millepores, etc.), is, at the most, 

twenty to thirty fathoms. 

Quoy and Gaymard, who accompanied the circumnayi- 
gator Freycinet on board the Urame frigate, have expressed 
an opinion that the Corallines merely formed a proportion- 
ally thin crust on the crest of submarine chasms of moun- 
tains, or the circular edges of voleanoes ; and in this manner 
explained, not only the remarkable appearance of the 
Atolls, but also the precipitous descent beyond their rings. 
But this theory has not stood the test of a more careful 
investigation ; for no known crater has ever attained such 
an expanse as, for instance, several Atolls in the Radack 
Archipelago, one of which is thirty-two miles long and 
twenty broad. 

Besides, the numerous volcanoes, on whose edges the 
Atolls were afterwards formed, must have all approached 
the surface to the slight depth in which the reef-forming 
Coral varieties can alone exist :_a supposition which is most 
improbable; for where on land can we find large and 
broad mountain-chains whose elevations attain such an 
altitude ? 

Further, the Corals do not grow higher than to the verge 
of the lowest water-mark at ebb tide, or, at the most, four 
to six inches above it; and though the waves may pile up 
loosened fragments to a height of thirty feet, still they 
could not form Coral islands sixty feet in height, like 
Tongataboo, or, as at Eua, elevate the reef three hundred | 
feet above the water-mark. 

But this fact the Quoy and Gaymardian dears took as 


> i 
> a 


MARINE BOTANY, 101 


little into account, as it did the encircling reefs that sur- 
round the lofty mountainous islands. 

Charles Darwin was the first to find the key to all these 
geological riddles, by deducing the formation of the varying 
Coral-reefs from the oscillating condition of the bed of the 
sea, and its periodical elevations and depressions. 

Just as it is now undoubtedly proved, that some portions 

of terra firma are continually rising (Scandinavia, Chili), 
while others are sinking (Dalmatia, Greenland), there are 
also rising and sinking regions in the Ocean. Among the 
latter, for instance, is that space, 4,000 miles long and 600 
broad, on which the Society Islands and the Lower Archi- 
pelago culminate, the Coral Sea, the long chain of the Mal- 
dives, Laccadives and Chayos Atolls. If, then, we fix our 
attention on any one Coral-reef island in these slowly-sink- 
ing regions, we find that, while it sinks, the equally sinking 
Coral-reef is raised, or at any rate kept in equilibrium by 
the new perpendicular erections of the Corallines, which try 
to reach the surface. But the Corals lying near the open 
sea find there better nourishment than those pointing to 
land; the former grow quickly, while the latter pine away, 
and thus, with time, a reef is formed surrounding the island 
at a considerable distance, between which and the coast the 
sea is frequently found so deep that large ships can anchor 
comfortably in this basin, as in a harbour. 

At length a period arrives when, by continual sinking, 
the central island entirely disappears beneath the waves, 
and the Atoll, or product of the Zoophytes, which labour 
against the sinking process, is alone left. 

Hence, wherever low lagoon islands are now visible, once 
lofty lands rose from the sea, whose existence would be for- 
gotten did not the Coral erections remain in evidence. 

From the present size of the reefs itis calculated that the 
plateau which was lost in this way from the Pacific covered 

at least 2,000 square miles; and, as there may have been 
lands whose sinking proceeded too rapidly for the Corals to 


102 HANDY BOOK OF 


hold their own on the surface, this estimate is probably far 
beneath the reality. 

The length of time needed for the formation of these 
colossal Coral-banks may be judged from the fact that 
D’Urville found the anchors of Perouse’s ships lost forty 
years previously off Vanikoro, at a depth of fifteen feet, 
covered with onlya small crust of Coral, and that the anchor 
which Anson, the circumnavigator, left off the island of 
Tinian, in a depth of twenty-two fathoms, when found 
eighty-five years after was also merely covered with a thin 
layer of Coral. Thus the naturalist is shown the extreme 
age of our planet by the reefs of the tropical ocean. 

While some portions of the bed of the sea are sinking, 
others again are rising. These masses of raised Coral 
prove that the New Hebrides, Solomon’s Islands, New Ire- 
land, the Friendly Islands, &c., are emerging from the bed 
of ocean. | 

Round Eua Island runs a Coral wall twenty feet high, in 
which the surf has excavated deep cavities and spouting 
holes. At such places the in-rolling wave produces inter- 
mittent springs, which start from the perforated rock with 
immense force. 

Most interesting is the manner in which lagoon islands 
and encircling reefs eventually become the residence of 
man; for the Corals only build up to low-water mark, 
and, therefore, every tide necessarily lays their labours 
under water. But where the living architects falter, the 
destroying surf displays itself as a creative might. It tears 
fragments and blocks from the exterior of the reef, and 
hurls thema long distance over its surface. Corals, shells, 
and sea-urchin houses are conyerted, by its crushing, grind- 
ing power, into lime, which gradually fills up the inter- 
stices of the large, irregularly-piled blocks, and imparts to 
them greater solidity. In this manner the firm ground 
rises higher and higher, till at last only the spring tides 


submerge it. Soon, too, the tropical sun does its part in 


MARINE BOTANY. 103 


the further construction, by bursting and exfoliating the 
mass rendered torrid by its beams at various places. It is 
then rolled higher and higher by the fierce tides ; and thus 
a wall is at length formed which even the stormy sea cannot 
overstep, and behind which the fine Coral lime can collect 
undisturbed. Here the floating seeds and fruit, which the 
ocean currents often bring with them from distant latitudes, 
find a suitable soil, and begin to cover the glistening lime 
with light verdure. Trunks of trees, washed from their 
home-forests by floods, also drift on the shores of the 
newly-formed islands, and bear to it sma animals—in- 
sects or lizards—as its first inhabitants. Before long palm- 


ISIS NOBILIS. 


groves beautify the new creation, an army of marine birds 
has collected on the new place of refuge; and land-birds, 
which have lost their way, revel in the shelter of the bushes 
which grow there. Lastly, after vegetation has completed 
its task, man makes his appearance on the scene, builds 
his hut on the fertile soil, which fallen leaves and rolling 
weeds have gradually formed, and calls himself lord of this 
small world. 

Thus, in the course of ages, have been formed all the 
islands, connected in a link or arranged in circles, which 


104 HANDY BOOK OF 


rise upon the Coral-reefs of the tropical ocean ; thus was 
formed the large territory of the Maldives, whose sultan, 
Ibrahim, bears the haughty title of King of the Thirteen 
Atolls and the Twelve Thousand Islands. May his shadow 
never grow less, or his star set! . 
With afew words on the valuable Coral Isis nobilis, we 
will close a chapter which has, perhaps, grown too long. 
It is found in the Mediterranean, principally on the coast 
of Provence, from Cape de la Couronne to St. Tropez, off 
the islands of Majorca and Minorca, at Stromboli, and on 
the coasts of Sicily and Algiers. It grows in large banks 
on the rocky ground. Only the internal parts of the Poly- 
podoms consist of the marbled red stony substance, which 
a large colony of Zoophytes cover with a softer living crust. 
At Stromboli, and in the Straits of Messina, according to 
De Quatrefages, the Coral-fishery is carried on now just as 
Marsigli described it 150 years ago. 
A large wooden cross weighted with stones, whose arms 
of equal length carry nets made of tow, is lowered on to the 
rocks fora depth of 200 to 300 feet. While one of the fisher- 
men alternately raises and lowers this apparatus, his com- 
rades row on slowly, so that a considerable distance is 
swept by it. Then the whole affair is drawn up, and the 
torn-off pieces of Coral which are found hanging in the 
meshes of the net are taken out. Each boat has a crew of 
seven or eight men, and the fishery lasts from April to June. 
The quantity obtained in these parts annually amounts 
to about 12 Sicilian quintals, each of 250 lbs. Formerly 
the price of the raw material was 4s. 6d. the pound. Each 
bank is only dragged once in ten years, as the corals 
: require that time to grow to perfection again. In Naples 
- many persons live by polishing, perforating, and selling 
this beautiful marine production. 


MARINE BOTANY, 105 


CHAPTER XI. 


Do not think, dear reader, that with the enormous families 
of fish, moluces, jelly fish, crustaceans, and polypes, which 
we have brought before your notice, that Life in the Sea is 
exhausted, and that the salt water, or the sand on the 
shore, contains no further marvels for you. To the un- 
assisted eye all this may certainly appear desolate and unin- 
habited ; but the microscope, or even the magnifying glass, 
will soon teach you better, and, in the shortest space, reveal 
to you a new and astounding world. While walking along 
the beach pick up a handful of the drift-sand,. which the 
wind has collected, and examine it through a magnifying 
glass: you will perceive nearly always, under the coarse 
grains of the inorganic silicious earth, a quantity of the 
most graceful forms of shell; some shaped like antique 
amphore, others convoluted like nautili or ammonites— 
all in their smallness so carefully carved, and formed in 
such a masterly way, that no human artist would be able to 
produce them in the same perfection on an increased size. 

The knowledge of these pretty creatures, of these Rhizo- 
pods and Foraminifera, as they are called, may justly be 
regarded as an achievement of the most recent times; for 
it is not much more than a century since they were first 
discovered by the Italian naturalist, Beccaria, in the sea- 
sand at Ravenna. For along period they were regarded 
as the exclusive product of the Adriatic: afterwards they 
were found here and there in England and France; their 
universal propagation and importance in the Oceanic House- 
hold was only proved in 1825, by Alcide D’Orbigny. 

It has been conclusively shown that Foraminifera are 
- present in the sand of all sea-coasts, and in such extra- 
ordinary quantities, that they form a material portion of 


106 HANDY BOOK OF 


its weight. Jonas Plancus, who first drew them in 1739, 


counted 8,000 in six ounces ; D’Orbigny, in a pound of sea- — 
sand from the West Indies, 3,849,000. Schultze, by a 
fine sieve, separated all the coarse grains from the sand of 
Molo di Gaeta, which is remarkably rich in the smaller 
Foraminiferous shells; about one-half of the residuum 


consisted of well-preserved Rhizopod shells. 


When we 


learn further, that the sea-lead along the whole Atlantic 


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coast of the States continually brought up masses of Fora- 
miniferous shells, from depths reaching to 90 fathoms: 
that, therefore, along this great distance—which is, how- 
ever, but a small part of the enormous territory occupied by 
them—they plaster the entire bed of ocean—it will be seen 
no animal group can, in the slightest degree, cope with them 
in numbers; not even the fossil infusoria, of which 41,000 
are found in every cubic inch of the stratum of Biline 


MARINE BOTANY, : 107 


polishing slate, which occupies several square miles—for 
they have merely alocal distribution—while the Foraminifera 
inhabit all waters, 

The similarity of their shells to those of the Nautili and 
Ammonites, led at first to the belief that these gracefully 
spiralled calcareous shells were formed by similar animals, 
and their smallness was ascribed to the exhaustion of a 
form, which no longer found the conditions of its earlier 
growth, in the altered state of the temperature and the 
components of the sea. Closer examination has, however, 
proved that they are animals of a very low order, which 
stand in close relation to the Ameba, also found in every 
sea. Other animals amaze us by their composite structure, 
the multiplicity of their organs, while each, designed for a 
special purpose, forms a harmonious whole; but, in the 
Ameba, the extremely simple structure of the body arouses 
our highest admiration. Nowhere do the mysteries of vital 
strength appear to us in a more wondrous light than in this 
case, where it reveals its most secret arrangements without 
any appointed instruments. The Ameba is nothing but an 
animated being, of a loose, pellucid, colourless, contractile 
substance, whose individual life is revealed by various 


_ changes of form, which bear the character of arbitrary 


motion. The larger mass of the body floats after a rounded 
or pointed, longer or shorter, continuation, which can grow 
from any part of the body: similar continuations grow 
afresh, and produce, by the constant change of motion, 
protean alterations of form in this simplest of all animal 
bodies. There is no distinction between cuticle and body in 
them; and the movements of these beings appear acts of 
volition; but there are no special organs of motion and 
feeling in their simple forms. They cannot exist in a body 


_ whose parts are so thoroughly equivalent, that each grain 


can at any moment change place with another. 
The substance seems not only regularly contractile, but 
also equally irritable at every part of the body, and adapted 
H 


108 HANDY BOOK OF 


to receive food and digest it. If an Ameba draws near 
another small animal or vegetable organism whose move- 
ments are not sufficiently quick to escape the enemy, it 
spreads its many-shaped continuations round it; after sur- 
rounding the strange body, they float behind it together, 
and the prisoner lies enclosed in an animal Mohencs till all 
that is soluble is extracted from it. 

Though the Foraminifera and Ameba have no difference 
of internal form, externally they differ greatly. The prin- 
cipal distinction is, that, in the latter, the body is naked ; 
but, in the former, exhibits a husk on its surface, through 
which the soft animalcule inside thrusts forward the fleshy 
parts that are used for crawling or seizing prey, by means 
of one or more openings. The outstretched threads seem to 
have something poisonous in their nature; for Dr. Schultze, 
of Griefswald, who has written a most interesting Monogram 
on the Foraminifera, repeatedly noticed that small lively 
Paramecia, Colpodes, and other infusoria, were entirely de- 
prived of their motive powers by any sudden contact with © 
the outstretched net of threads. 

The calcareous structures of the Foraminifera, of which 
1,600 varieties are already known, are remarkable both for 
their prettiness and the multiplicity of their forms. They 
are found globular and bottle-shaped, straight and spiral ; 
some hava only one large opening, others have countless . 
small holes all round. In some, again, the cavity is simple, — 
in others, divided into several chambers. 

The Diatomacee play an equally great, if not greater, 
part with the Foraminifera in the ocean kingdom. The 
forms of these strange microscopic creatures display to us 
regular mathematical figures—cubes, triangles, parallelo- 
grams—such as are found in no other plants; and their 
surface is frequently most elegantly carved. They are 
found in every sea. On Sir James Ross’s last voyage ofdis- 
covery to the South Pole, the lead was sunk in depths which 
would haye held Chimborazo, and Diatomacece were regularly. 


MARINE BOTANY. 109 


brought up. The mighty ice wall which at length checked 
- the southern course of the daring seafarers, was coloured 
brown by the Diatomacee. Floating ice, when melted, dis- 
played them by millions. They often formed a dirty foam 
on the surface of the Polar Sea. The Diatomacez are 
covered with indestructible silicious husks, which explain 
the great geological value of both these microscopical 


ISTHMIA, LICMOPHORA,. 


creatures. Man, and all the mammals, disappear without 
a trace; in a short time their constituents are dissolved ; 
while the Foraminifera and Diatomacee construct for eter- 
nity. Incessantly they lay their ever-increasing pavement 
on the ocean-bed: they are ever active in throwing up sub- 
marine mountains and banks, and filling bays and arms of 
the sea, At the first glance, it may appear an exaggeration 
to ascribe such an important part to beings which are so 
small, that millions are often needed to occupy the space of 
a cubic inch; but when we reflect in what astounding num- 


110 HANDY BOOK OF 


bers they are found, how rapidly they multiply themselves 
by separation, and that, from the first dawn of animated 
nature to the present moment their rapidly-dying generae 
tions have followed each other, we can easily understand 
that they are among the greatest builders of the earth; so 
that the entire bed of ocean is nothing but a catacomb of 
Foraminifera and Diatomacee. 

In addition, the sea is peopled by a countless number of 
Infusoria, which move by the assistance of floating cilia, and 
whose complicated organism often astounds us. This whole 


INFUSORIA. 


microscopic world serves as nourishment to rather larger 
animals, which are again swallowed by more powerful crea- 
' tures; till, finally, the larger fish, the sea-birds, the mam- 
malia, and man, feed on the abundance of ocean. Their 
disappearance would, in all probability, depopulate the 
ocean, 


: ¥ 3 
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Qu aN 


MARINE BOTANY. 111 


CHAPTER XII. 


WHitk terra firma develops its richest plans on the lowest 
spots—in plains and in bottoms—and the size and variety 
of its growth decreases in the loftier mountainous regions, 
till at last all vegetation dies out, we find quite a different 
arrangement in the Ocean empire. Here the greatest depths 
are plantless, and the calcareous nullipores, mosses, and 
lichens, are not found below a depth of from six to eight 
hundred feet. Gradually, corallines and other varieties of 
sea-weed join them, till the rich girdle of plants which the 
sea displays on its frontiers commences about one hundred 
feet below the surface of the water. The plants which form 
it stand, it is true, at a lower stage of development than 
those of the land, and lack the splendour of the flowers and 
fruits; but, just as the earth ever appears in a new garb at 
different heights and latitudes, and attracts our highest 
admiration by the unending multiplicity of its ornaments, 
so the forms of the Algz change, both in descending from 
the highest bed to the depths, and in moving along the 
coast ; and the leaves of these marine plants are deficient 
neither in beauty of colour, nor in gracefulness of form. 

The different media in which land and marine plants live 
necessarily demand equally different modes of support. The 
former principally employ their roots to draw nourishing 
essences from the lap of earth: the Alge, on the other hand, 
imbibe along their entire surface the materials needed for 
their support, and the roots are only employed for adhesion. 
The peculiar constituents of the soil are very important to 
the land plant, for it lives partly on them ; with the marine 
plant, it is a matter of indifference whether the ground on 
which it grows is composed of granite, chalk, slate, or sand- 
stone, if it only afford safe anchorage. 

Flat rocks, which are not too greatly exposed to the pres- 


112 HANDY BOOK OF 


sure of the waves, and have numerous excavations that 


remain full of water at ebb-tide, are hence the favourite 
residence of the majority of marine plants, while the shores 
consisting of loose sand are equally as barren as the Arabian 
desert. But even on sandy coasts, large submarine meadows 
are sometimes found. The Zostera marina (Grasswrack), 
the only phanerogamic or flower-bearing plant of the German 
Ocean, is admirably adapted to attach itself to loose sand, 
through its trailing stalk, from whose knots or joints long 
roots grow out. The long grassy leaves, of a bright green 
and silky lustre, which move freely in the water, afford food 
and protection to countless animalcules and plants. In the 
tropical sea, the sea-grass is eaten by the turtles; and, in 
the North of Europe, it is used for making cheap mattresses. 
Large quantities are exported to England from Ostend for 
this purpose. 

The Algze are divided into three large groups—the ereen 
(Chlorospermee), the olive-coloured (Melanospermee), and 
the red_(Rhodospermee), which are subdivided again into a 
number of families, genera, and species. On the British 
coast alone, there are some 370 species, belonging to 105 
different genera; so that an idea may be formed from this 
of the richness of the Ocean botany. Thousands are already 
known; but of a surety as many again are waiting for 
their Boreas name, and have neyer yet been gazed on by a 
human eye. 

The Chlorosperms, or green sea-weeds, are found most 
frequently near high-water mark, and love to lead an 
amphibious life, half in the air, half under water. To them 
belong the silky Enteromorphe and ribbony Ulve, which, 
at suitable spots, cover the coast rocks with the most vivid 
green. Very remarkable, too, is the wide geographical 
extension of these genera. The Ulva latissuma (sea-lettuce), 
and Enteromorpha compressa (sea-grass) of our coast, grow 
on the desolate shores of the Arctic Ocean, skirt the Tropical 


Ocean, and extend southwardito Cape Horn. But few plants 


iT 
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Pi a 
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“See ~ 


Li! 


MARINE BOTANY. 113 


and animals possess such a flexible nature, as to accomodate 
itself to the most varying climates. 

The group of the vlive-coloured sea-weed plays, however, 
a far more important part in the Ocean household. To it 
belong both the species which, on the fall of the tide, give 
our rocky shores their peculiar gloomy colour, and the 
thighty Laminaris (oar-weed), which, wherever they find a 
firm soil, form a submarine forest-belt round the coasts to a 
depth of several fathoms. 

The small Fucus canaliculatus, whose small channeled 
stems and branches have no air-vessels, first makes its 
appearance on our leaving the land; it is followed by the 
Fucus nodosus, a large species, with powerful-looking stalks 
distending at some places into air-vessels ; and by the Fucus 
vesiculosus, a gregarious plant, which covers the rocks far 
and wide, from one to two feet above high-water mark down 
to the verge of the lowest tide. Through the broad forked 
leaves runs a wide rib, which is ornamented on each side 
with numerous air-vessels found in pairs. The deepest spot 
in the littoral zone, or belt of rock, extending between ebb 
and flood, is occupied by the equally gregarious Fucus 
serratus, which is distinguished by its toothed margin leaves 
and absence of air-vessels. 

These species of Fucus are very frequently found on the 
flat rocky west coast of Scotland and Ireland, as well as in 
Brittany, where enormous quantities were formerly burnt, 
and sold for the production of soda under the name of kelp 
or varech. -At the Orkneys alone 20,000 men were engaged 


_ the entire summer in collecting and burning it. Now itis | 


no longer employed for this purpose ; as, to the great injury 
of the needy inhabitants of those coasts, soda is obtained more 
cheaply from salt; still they are employed in. collecting 
iodine, which, of course, has not nearly such commercial 
value. It is also greatly used for manuring fields, some 
being reduced to ashes, some in a mouldering state. Thus 


114 HANDY BOOK OF 


several ships annually visit the coast of Brittany from Jersey, 


to fetch cargoes of sea-weed for that island. 

The largest sea-weeds of the German Ocean are the Lami- 
naria, saccharina and digitata. The former is found in 
broad, leathery, waving ribbons, two to three fathoms in 
length ; the latter in long tufts growing on stalks, three to 
four feet in height. These large plants are, however, but 
dwarfs, when compared with the gigantic Laminaria of 
colder regions. Only one of the plants belonging to this 


family is found in tropical waters; but, on the other hand, 


it extends to the furthest arctic limits, and increases in size 
and variety toward the poles. The northern hemisphere 


has more genera than the southern. Both in the North 


Atlantic and Pacific are found the Gigantic Alariz, with 
leaves forty feet long, and several feet in width; and in the 
extreme north the Agarum Thalasso-phyllum, Costaria, and 
Nereocystis ; the latter only found in the Pacific, while 
Macrocystis and Lessonia flourish mostly in the southern 
hemisphere. 


In the numerous channels and bays of the Tierra del 


Fuego, the extraordinary growth of the Macrocystis pyrifera 
excites the admiration of all visitors. On every rock, 
Darwin says, from low water-mark to a great depth, both 
along the outer coasts and in the channels, this gigantic 
marine plant grows. It is astonishing how it can flourish 
beneath the mighty waves of the Western ocean, which no 
rock, however hard, can resist. The stem is round, slimy, 
smooth, and rarely more than an inch in diameter. Captain 
Cook tells us, in his second voyage, that at Kerguelen’s 
land this plant attains an enormous length, although the 
stem is not above the thickness of a man’s hand. On some 
of the rocks where it grows, th bottom was not found with 
a twenty-four fathom line. As the Macrocystis does not 
grow perpendicularly, but forms a very acute angle with 
the ground, Mr. Darwin considers himself justified in giving 
it a length of 400 feet and more. 


7 mn 
a 


MARINE BOTANY. 115 


The number of living things of every sort, whose exist- 
ence is closely connected with that of this huge bladder- 
wrack, is astounding. Nearly every leaf, with the excep- 
tion of those floating on the surface, is so densely covered 
with corallines, that they impart to it a white colour. To 
the flat surface of the leaves, various Mussels, Tops, Mol 
luses, and Bivalves attach themselves. Countless Crusta- 
ceans live on some parts of the plants. On shaking the 
large tangled roots, a pile of little fish, shelled Molluscs, 
Cephalopods, Crabs, Sea Urchins, Asteroids, handsome 
Holothurie, Planariz, and crawling marine animals of 
every possible shape, is found. 

Under the leaves of this plant, Mr. Darwin also tells us, 
numerous species of fish live, which would find food and 
shelter nowhere else; if it perished, the numerous Divers, 
Gulls, and other fishing-birds, and the Otters, Seals, and 
Porpoises, would also be destroyed ; and, lastly, the savage, 
the wretched lord of that unlucky country, would be com- 
pelled by hunger to double his cannibal repasts, and, pro- 
bably, in his turn disappear from the globe. 

When three days from Cape Horn, large masses of sea- 
weed, torn off by the storms, announce to the navigator that 
he is approaching the Fire-land. ‘‘ We succeeded,” Meyen 
says, ‘‘in securing one of these floating islands, which was 
drawn on to the deck by the exertion of five men. It was 
impossible to disentangle this enormous mass, and we could 
only trace the apparent stem for sixty-six feet. The branches 
were thirty to forty feet long, and as thick as the parent 
stem, from which they depended. We estimated the entire 
length of the plant at 200 feet ; the pear-shaped air-vessels 
at the base of the leaves were frequently six to seven inches 
long, and some of the leaves measured seven and eight feet: 
On these floating sea-weed islands were a large number of 
the most varying animal creatures, thousands and thousands 
of Lepade and Sertulariz, Crustaceans and Annelids. 

‘‘The gigantic plants which the mighty ocean shelters 


116 HANDY BOOK OF 


in the vicinity of Tierra del Fuego, attracted us as much as 
the luxuriance of the vegetation in the forests of Brazil. A 
single plant of the Macrocystis pyrifera, with its enormous 
mass of leafy substance, covered as large a space of land as 
those giants in the virgin forests of Brazil. The number of 
.ower Algwe, Sertulariz, Cellariz, and all the other animals 
that have taken up their abode on the floating islands, ex- 
ceeds in variety the parasitical covering of the trees in the 
tropical forests. It seems as if in these desolate regions of 
the Earth, where the calmness of nature is only disturbed 

y terrible storms, the producing power of the planet is 
solely displayed in the giant growth of the submarine vege- 
table world.” 

Extraordinary masses of gigantic sea-weed, Macrocyste, 
Lessonie, and D’Urvillez, are also met with on the rocky 
coasts of the Falkland Islands. Torn from the rocks and 
hurled on the coast, they collect in the surf into immense 
vegetable cables, much thicker than the human body, and 
several hundred feet long. Many of the finest and rarest 
Algee may be discovered here, reminding the botanician, by 
the similitude of form, of his distant home, while their sight 
tells him at the same time that he is in another hemisphere. 
The giant species of the Lessoniz are principally met with 
near islands. Their growth resembles that of a tree. The 


trunk attains a height of eight or ten feet, and the thick-. 


ness “of a man’s thigh, and terminates in a crown, whose 
leaves descend like the branches of a Weeping Willow. 
Submarine forests are formed by this plant, which, like the 
Macrocystis, shelters an infinity of marine animals. 
Equally rich in gigantic marine plants are the northern 
part of the Pacific, near the Kuriles, the Aleutian islands, 
and the island-studded north-western coast of America. 
The Nereocystis Lutkeana forms dense forests in Norfolk 
Bay, and at New Archangel,’ in Russian America. The 
stem of the plant, which is often 300 fathoms in length, is 


not thicker than a ribbon, and terminates in a large stalk 


MARINE BOTANY. 117 


bearing a coronal of Dichotomous leaves, which reach a 
length of thirty and forty feet. Martius tells us that the 
Sea Otter, when watching for its prey, likes to rest on the 
air-vessels of these giants; and that the tough long stems 
supply the rude fishermen of those parts with excellent 
lines. 

The growth of the Nereocystis must be extraordinarily 
rapid; for it is an annual, is never seen in spring, and 
therefore develops its enormous size in the course of a single 
summer. 

Before we pass to the third great group of marine plants, 
the Rhodosperms, or Fucoids, we must refer to the enor- 
mous weed meadows or fucus-banks of the Atlantic, which 
are among the greatest marvels of the ocean. It is well 
known that the mighty Gulf Stream, which pours its blue 
masses of water from America to Europe, at the Azores 
partly turns southward again towards the African coast, 
and is driven back to the American coast by the north-east 
trade-wind. Within this limit a sea is enclosed from 22 
deg. to 36 deg. N.L., and from 25 deg. to 65 deg. W.L., 
which displays very few currents, and those depending on 
the wind blowing at the time. This quiet portion of the 
ocean, whose surface is thrice as: large as Europe, is found 
to be covered with larger or smaller heaps of Sargassum 
bacerferum. Some days it collects round the ship in such 
masses, that its progress is impeded, while at other times 
hours elapse before a plant is seen. When Columbus 
crossed this unknown Sargasso sea, his desponding com- 
_rades became still more apprehensive; for they believed 
that these floating beds of sea-weed, which hemmed the 
course of their vessel, indicated the limits of the navigable 
ocean. 

It deserves mentioning as an interesting fact, that these 
fucus-banks afford us the most remarkable instance of gre- 
garious plants of a single species. Nowhere else, neither on 
the grassy prairies of America, nor in the heaths and forests 


118 HANDY BOOK OF 


of Northern Europe and Asia, is such uniformity of vegeta- 
tion to be found, as in these mighty sea-weed beds. 

‘¢ The collection of this enormous carpet of plants,” Meyen 
says, ‘‘ over a space of more than 40,000 square miles, has 
been, since Columbus’s time, the object of admiration and 
investigation, Some navigators believe that this sea-weed 
is collected by the Gulf Stream, and that in the Gulfof 
Mexico enormous quantities grow, a supposition, however, 
which does not now need to be contradicted, as I shall pre- 
sently show. Humboldt was of opinion, that these marine 
plants grow in shallow water, and are torn up by fish or 
molluses ; perhaps, too, by currents, and other causes. Von 
Martius believes that the weeds grow in shallow water at 
24 deg. N.L., and 28 deg. w.L., and are torn off there by the 
whales. It is inexplicable to me, how such enormous 
masses of this plant could be torn up from isolated shallows. 
I have examined thousands and thousands of these roots, 
and I may venture to assert, that they were never sessile. 
While swimming in the water, they have pushed out roots 
and leaves in every direction. I have noticed a similar de- 
velopment and growth among free Algze spores, and the 
formation of a root among the floating Conferve, and hence 
I do not consider the growth of the sea-weed, which floats 
about in the open sea, as so very wonderful. According to 
my opinion, they have been floating about at the place 
where they are found for thousands of years; but their mass 
must increase annually, though it is difficult to explain 
how. I must mention here the great number of animals 
which find their residence and food in these floating islands 
of Gulf weed. The Sargasso sea is usually covered with 
tiny Sertularinize, coloured Vorticelle, and other strange 
creatures. Various Pleurobranches and Nereides sit on the 


branches of this weed, and serve as food for the countless. 


fishes and crustaceans which have taken up their abode 
here.”’ 


Similar evidences are found in the Indian and Pacific 


te 


MARINE BOTANY. 119 


Oceans at proportionally quiet spots, which are surrounded 
by rotatory currents. That their appearance is such a 
rarity may serve as a proof of the restless motion of the 
waters. If this eternal circulation did not take place, 
probably the sea would everywhere be covered with 
weeds, which would be alone sufficient to impede nayi- 
gation. 

The Red Sea weeds, the Rhodosperms or Floridee, with 
a short account of which we shall conclude this chapter, 
embrace the greatest number of species, and, though not 
the largest, are the handsomest in form and colour. They 
like neither light nor motion, and hence remain beneath the 
shadow and protection of the larger varieties, on the shelving 


POLYSIPHONIA PARASITICA. 


sides of deep hollows. Many of them grow at a depth below 
the tidal influence, but the majority are found on the line of 
low-water mark, and are only visible for afew hours during 
the spring tides, when the sea runs out to the fullest extent. 
To this group belong the wondrously-delicate Polysiphoniz, 
Calithamniz, Delessertiz, Plocamiz, etc., which delight the 
collector’s heart by their gracefulness, and bright pink, 
scarlet, or purple colouring, as well as the calcareous Coral- 
lines and Nullipores, in which the external colouring is 
absent, and which were long considered animal formations, 


120 HANDY BOOK OF ~ 


owing to their coralline nature, but reveals their true 
nature by their internal structure. | 

Iceland Moss (Chondrus crispus) which is found in in- 
credible quantities on the coasts of the British islands, also 
belongs to the family of the Rhodosperms. 


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CALITHAMNIA. 


On being boiled, it almost entirely dissolves in the water, 
and on growing cold, becomes a colourless, nearly tasteless, = 
jelly. The poor coast inhabitants of Ireland aud England e 


MARINE BOTANY. *. >" Se 


have used it for food during a lengthened period, and it has 
also been introduced into the pharmacopeia in the last 
twenty years under the name of Carrageen Moss. Similar 
nourishing jellies, which can also be employed as glue, are 
obtained from several exotic weeds, among others from the 


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CORALLINA OFFICINALIS. 


Gracilaria spinosa of the Indian Ocean, which the Salan- 
gane (Hirundo esculenta) is said to employ principally in the 
construction of its edible nest. 

The steeply sheving walls of the south coast of Java are 
covered with luxuriant undergrowth to the extreme verge 
of land: even Pandanuses take root on the steep walls them- 
selves, and look down by thousands into the surging sea’ 
below. 

In course of incalculable years, the surf has worked deep 
bays and cavities in the calcareous rock: and in them 
the Salangane builds its nest. Where the sea rages most, 
flocks of them will be seen hovering. They fly purposely 
through the thickest foam, and seek their food in the seeth- 
ing surf. From a projecting peak, the orifice of the cavity, 
Gua Rongkop may be seen, at one moment entirely beneath 
the waves, and then peering out again, and the swallows 


122 HANDY BOOK OF 


flying inandout with lightning speed. While, ata short dis- 
tance from the coast, the blue sea is quite calm, it never : 
ceases to boil and roar at the foot of the rocky walls. The . 
most beautiful rainbows are reflected from the incessantly 
rising spray. 

What marvellous instinct can have induced the birds to 
attach their nests to the high, arched, gloomy roof of these 
caves? Did they, perchance, hope thus to escape the pur- 

suit of man? If they did so, their hopes were vain; for 
his avarice teaches him how to gain access to the most 
inaccessible things. At the Guagede Cave, the ridge of the 
coast wall is 80 feet above the level of the sea at ebb-tide: 
the wall bends concavely inwards, but forms a promontory 
25 feet above the sea, which excellently assists the nest 
collectors; for they let down a ladder, made of ratan cords, 
perpendicularly from its edge. The roof of the entrance to 
the cave is only ten feet above the sea, which covers the 
whole of the bottom even at ebb-tide, while at the flood the 
opening of the cave is closed by every rolling wave. The 
interior can only be reached at ebb-tide with a perfectly 
calm sea, and even this would be impossible were not the 
roof perforated by a number of holes. On the projecting 
points in these holes, the boldest and strongest of the 
collectors stands, and attaches ratan cords to them, which 
hang down from the roof from four to five feet. To the 
lower end other long cords are fastened, so that it forms a 
hanging bridge all along the cave, following the inequalities 
of the roof. The cave is 100 feet wide, and 150 feet long 
to the extreme northern point. Other caves are 500 feet 
long. Ifwe have admired the daring of the cragsmen of 
St. Kilda, who oscillate in the air, we must not pass by the 
courage of these Javanese cave-plunderers. Before they 
hang down the ladders to collect the birds’ nests, a solemn ~ 
prayer is addressed to the goddess of the South Coast, and 
at times a sacrifice offered at the grave where the first dis- 
coverer of the bird-nest cave is said tolie. Thus, in all zones — 


-- 


MARINE BOTANY. 123 


and at every stage of civilization, man is led by an inner voice 
to rely on the invisible powers, where a great and dangerous 
enterprise is before him. The Salangane, as we have said, 
builds its nest of sea-weed, which it macerates in its maw, 
and then expels again through the beak. The layers are 
continually placed on the edge of the nest till the whole is 


' finished, and they harden in the air. When the time for 


the harvest approaches, a few collectors go down into the 
hole daily, and examine in what state the young brood is. 
If they notice that the young are nearly all fledged, the 
collecting is begun. These nests form the first quality; 
those with still quite naked birds, the second; while those 
which still contain eggs, and are not ripe, are counted as the 
third. On the other hand, those nests are over-ripe, black 
and useless, in which the young are already feathered. All 


the young and the eggs are thrown in the sea, The nests 


are taken thrice a-year; and the birds incubate four times. 
In spite of this huge extermination, their number does not 
decrease, either because many young birds have flown out 
before the day of execution, or other swallows come from 
caves that are still inaccessible. From this cave, 50 piculs 
are annually obtained, for which the Chinese pay from £350 
to £450, or about three guineas per pound. A picul, on the 
average, contains 1,000 nests. If we assume each collection 
to produce 50,000, and calculate two birds to each nest, we 
arrive at a total of more than 100,000 swallows living 
together in the Javanese ocean-caves. 

In the interior of the island, too, in the limestone grottoes 


_of Bandong, the Salangane nestles, though in much smaller 


numbers, for scarce 14,000 nests are collected there in the 
year. In these caves, swallows and bats live together, but 
do not disturb each other ; for when they are not breeding, 
the former fly out of the cave at sunrise and do not return 
till late in the evening. The collectors Boapedt that they 
seek the sea-beach. 

In Sumatra and the other Sunda isles, birds’ nests are 

I 


124 HANDY BOOK OF 


also collected ; but nowhere in such quantities as at Java, 
In China, they are first cleansed of all foreign constituents 
by special instruments, and then taken to market. In being 
prepared for the table, so many spices are added that they 
are the greatest of Chinese dainties; but, in themselves, 
they are nothing but fine jelly. 

The Japanese have long found out that these expensive 
birds’ nests are only softened Alge. Those sea-weeds which 
are found in large quantities on the coast of Japan are 
powdered by them and boiled into a thick jelly, which they 
pour out in long pipes like maccaroni, and introduce it into 
trade under the name of Jin-jan, as an artificial birds’ -nest 
substance. The Dutch call it Agar-agar, and eat large 
quantities. Boiling is alone necessary to reconvert it into 
jelly. How great the use of this vegetable jelly must be in 
Japan is proved by the fact, that it is quoted as a production 
of the land in geographo-statistical works. 

Thus we see that the Algz, which were considered by the 
Romans so valueless, that, when they wished to indicate 
anything extremely paltry, they used to say it was worse 
than sea-weed cast ashore—projecta vilior alga—do not at all 
deserve to be thus looked down on. Man might rather be 
reproached because, through ignorance or prejudice, he has 
hitherto so little used such a rich source of nourishment, 
which nature offers him so abundantly on all flat, rocky 
coasts. For not only are the species we have instanced 
esculent, but several others of the most common sea-weeds 
in the Atlantic and German Oceans (Fucus nodosus and vesi- 
culosus, Laminaria saccharina), aswell as the gigantic Alariz 
and D’Urvillee of the cold latitudes, afford nourishment. 
Would it not be possible to prepare cheaply the nutriment 
contained in sea-weed, so that it might be transported for 
long distances? The question certainly deserves some 
attention ; especially at a time when the supply of the 
necessary proyision for a growing population becomes daily 
more difficult, 


MARINE BOTANY. 125 


Finally we may remark, that the higher sea-weeds require 
salt for their growth. In the Baltic, the number of marine 
Algee is much smaller than in the open sea, whose waves 
wash the Scandinavian peninsula at the same latitudes. 
But it does not follow from this, that salt can be regarded as 
nutriment like water, carbonic acid, and air; but that it is 
rather an irritating medicine, which heightens the organic 
activity of the organism, much in the same way that certain 
salts aid digestion in the higher animals. 

Most of the Alge are covered with a thick slime, which 
is of great importance to their preservation, as the water 
ean glide more evenly over them, and thus their power of 
resisting the storms is augmented. 

The Sponges, of which fifty-six species are found on the 
British coasts alone, belong to the problematical creatures 
which stand on the border line between the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms, and are attached to both in turn by 
by naturalists. As, however, it wants both sensation and 
motion, we have good reasons for classing the Sponge 
among the marine plants. 

The body of the Sponge consists of numerous horny 
fibres constantly intersecting each other, in which very 
many pointed pieces of lime are imbedded, and is traversed 
by a system of water-conducting canals, which commence 
with small pores at the surface, and pour their contents 
into the larger vessels. These, too, are finally discharged 
through larger openings. According to the observations of 
Dr. Grant, the water flows in through the smaller pores, 
and out again through the larger canals, so long as the 
Sponge remains alive. These constant currents supply it 
with the necessary nourishment, and maintain the change 
of substance, which these low creatures require as much as 
the highest beings. All the horny parts are covered with 
a semi-fluid viscous substance, in which the simple life of 
the Sponge has its residence. It is this which secretes the 


126 HANDY BOOK OF 


firm parts, forms the real spongeous skeleton, and makes 
the mass larger. 

Sponges are progagated in a strange way. At certain 
seasons, the walls of the canals are covered with countless 
small dots or bodies, which are the spores, or young eggs, 
of the sponge. As they become larger, they grow covered 
with cilia, and soon quit the maternal body, to flow out 
into the open sea. Here they swim about freely for a time, ~ 
by means of the constant motion of their cilia, till they 
attach themselves to some fixed object, in which they can 
await their further development. From this moment their 
wanderings cease, and a quiet vegetative life is substituted 
for the adventurous nomadizing. From this history of 
their development it might seem as if the Sponges could not 
be denied an animal nature; but the spores of the sea-weed 
enjoy the same privilege of a movable life, so that this is 
no distinguishing mark between the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms. The common sea, or bathing Sponge (Spongia 
communis), which plays so useful a part in our households, 
is usually obtained from the islands of the Archipelago, 
where it is attached to reefs, and forms a considerable 
article of trade. The West Indies also supply useful 
Sponges. Burnt Sponge is still employed as an effectual 
remedy in cases of goitre, and owes its medicinal power 
to the iodine, bromine, and carbonate of lime which are 
found in the ashes. 


We close our book with a few remarks on the dependence 
of all created beings on time and space. 

Of the countless animal and plant varieties which inhabit 
the globe, each finds only at one spot of it all those climatic 
influences and conditions of soil combined in which its life 
attains perfection, Some, gifted with a more yielding ora 


MARINE BOTANY. 127 


more energetic nature, occupy a wide space on the surface of 
the earth; they are found enjoying a healthy existence, 
spread over entire hemispheres, Others, again, have to be 
contented with their own home, and are not unfrequently 
limited to a single bay, a single mountain slope. 

In this close mysterious connection between the producing 


_ soil and its productions, is doubtlessly hidden a great part of 


the magical charms of nature. Here all is harmony; we feel 
it in our heart-of-hearts, and our eye rejoices at the union of 
form and colour, as our ear does at the sound of fine music; 
and what creation of any human artist could be compared 
with the pictures, whose endless, ever changing gallery the 
Master of all worlds displays to us in every zone from Pole to 


_ Pole! They pass away in a second ; but every minute brings 


new ones never before seen. Fortunate is the man who, by 
attentive loving observation, has gained a deeper insight of 
their beauties!’ To him every walk reveals sources of the 
purest artistic enjoyment. 

The causes that attach animals and plants to certain locali- 
ties are partially clear and patent to us. The warmness or 
coldness of the sea, produced by currents, geographical posi- 
tion and depth, quiet or troubled, pure or impure water, 
abundant provision or the want of it, the fineness or softness 
of the soil, sufficiently explain, in many cases, why various 
genera of marine creatures are here found in large numbers, 
or there are entirely absent. A glance at their structure 
teaches us sometimes the physical qualities which their 
residence must necessarily possess. We see at once if an 


_ Alga requires the protection of an unruflied calm or can defy 


the storm; if it is found to anchor on the rocks, or to sink 
its roots into a yielding soil. Many a Molluse can only 
breathe in the purest water, or requires hard stone, to which 
it attaches itself. In other soft-bodied tribes, on the other 
hand, the respiratory organs are protected against the admis- 
sion of shifting land, and permit them to hide from their 
foes in the mud. 


128 HANDY BOOK OF MARINE BOTANY 


The geographical distribution ef the plants and animals 
found on land, is indubitably much more easily decided than 


that of the denizens of the sea. The inquirer can mount 


the loftiest mountains to the last trace of vegetation; and, 
far above these summits, his eye pierces the pure atmosphere, 
in which the Condor soars in solitary majesty; he can 
traverse the valleys, or, descending into the interior of the 
earth, even survey and collect the subterranean flora; but 
he cannot walk over the submarine meadows or through the 
thickets of the fucine forests; he is not permitted to sink 
into the depths of ocean. 

But, in spite of these natural obstacles, his investigating 
mind, connected with his insatiable curiosity, has granted 
him means to consult the abysses and their secrets, and 
partly to raise the veil behind which the life of the sea is 
hidden. Armed with the dredge, he filches from the bottom 
of the sea Plants, Polypes, Molluscs, and Echino-dermata, 
and learns the different provinces they select for their abode ; 
or he lowers the line for hundreds, nay thousands of fathoms, 
in order to draw up with it specimens of Corals and Shells. 


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The Throne of David. By Rev. J. H. INGRAHAM. Illustrated. 
The Pillar of Fire. By Rev. J. H. INGRAHAM. Illustrated. 
Anna Lee, By T. S. ARTUR. Illustrated. 

The Wide, Wide World. By E. WETHERELL. Coloured Illusts, 


. Queechy. Bythesame. Coloured Illustrations. 
. Melbourne House. By thesame. Coloured Illustrations. 
. Sceptres and Crowns, and The Flag of Truce. By the same. 


Coloured Illustrations. 


. The Fairchild Family. Mrs. SHERWooD. Coloured Illustrations, 
. Stepping Heavenward, and Aunt Jane’s Hero, By Mrs. E. | 


Prentiss. Coloured Illustrations. 


. Mabel Vaughan. By Miss CuMMING. Coloured Illustrations. 
. Dunallan. By GRAcE KENNEDY. Coloured Illustrations. 

. Father Clement. By the same. Coloured Illustrations. 

. Holden with the Cords. By Mrs. Jay. Coloured Illustrations. 
. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. By Mrs. H. B. Stowe. With a Sketch 


of the Life of Rev. Jostsq HENson. Coloured and other Illustrations. 


. Barriers Burned Away. By E. P. Ror. Coloured Illustrations. 
. Little Women and Good Wives. By Miss ALcotT. Coloured 


Illustrations. 


. From Jest to Earnest. By E. P. Ror. Coloured Illustrations. 
. Near to Nature’s Heart. By E. P. Ror. Coloured Illustrations. 


Opening of a Chestnut Burr. By E., P.Ror. Col. Illust. 


. What Can She Do? By E. P. Ror. Coloured Illustrations. 
. The Old Helmet. By E. WETHERELL. Coloured Illustrations. 
. Daisy. By thesame. Coloured Illustrations. 

. A Knight of the Nineteenth Century. Coloured Illustrations, 
. Woman our Angel. By A. S. Rok. Coloured Illustrations. 

. The Lamplighter. By Miss CuMMiNnG. Coloured Illustrations, 
. A Face Illumined. By E. P. Ror. Coloured Illustrations. 


London: WARD, LOCK & CoO., Salisbury Square, E.C. 


ILLUSTRATED GIFT BOOKS. a 


THE GOOD WORTH LIBRARY. 


In the Goop Wortu Lisrary xo works have been admitted in which the three 
requisites for good worth in a book,—namely, the promotion of knowledge, the 
Jurtherance of wisdom, and the charm of amusement—are not combined, and whose 
perusal will not satisfy the mind, as with good, wholesome and strengthening Sood. 


Fully Illustrated and handsomely bound, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. each. 


I, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progiess, from this World to that which 
is to Come. With Memoir of the Author by H. W. DutcKeEn, PH.D , and 
too Illustrations by THomAs DaALzIzL, Engraved by DALZIEL Brothers. 


The Swiss Family Robinson ; or, The Adventures of a Swiss ~ 
Pastor and his Family on an Uninhabited Island. Translated by HENRY 
FritH. With Coloured Plates and upwards of 200 Engravings, 


3. Andersen’s Stories for the Young. By HANs CHRISTIAN 
ANDERSEN. With many full-page and other Engravings, 


4. Andersen’s Popular Tales for Children. By HANS CHRISTIAN 
ANDERSEN. With many full-page and other Engravings. 


5. Anne and Jane Taylor’s Poetry for Children. Containing 


the Original Poems, Hymns for Infant Minds, and Rhymes for the Nursery: 
With many Engravings. 


6. The Story of Stories for the Little Ones ; or, Bible Narratives 
for the Young. By Mrs. LEATHLEY. With many Engravings. 


7. Fifty Celebrated Women: Their Virtues and Failings, and the _ 


Lessons of their Lives. With many Engravings. 


8. Fifty DSelebrated Men: Their Lives and Trials, and the Deeds 


that made them Famous. With many Engravings. 


9g. Robinson Crusoe. By DANIEL DEFOE. With Memoir of the 
Author and many Engravings. 


10, The Wonders of the World, in Earth, Sea, and Sky. By 


UncLe JoHN. With 123 Engravings. 


| 
[ tr Evenings at Home; or, The Juvenile Budget Opened. By 
Mrs. BARBAULD and Dr. AIKEN. With many Engravings. 


2 


12, The Gentlemen Adventurers; or, Antony Waymouth. By 
W.H.G. Kineston. With full-page Engravings. 


13. Sandford and Merton (The History of), By Tuomas Day, 
With tco Engravings by Dauzret Brothers. - 

14. A Boy’s Life Aboard Ship, as itis. Told by Himself. With 
full-page Engravings. 

15. Life in a Whaler; or, Perils and Adventures in the Tropical 
Seas. By Sartor CHARLEY. With full-page Engravings. 


16. Great Inventors: The Sources of their Usefulness, and the Re- 
sults of their Efforts. With 109 Engravings, 


17, The Marvels of Nature; or, Outlines of Creation. With 4oo 
Engravings by Dauzieu Brothers. 


London: WARD, LOCK & CO., Salisbury Square, E.C. 


pe ET 


ILLUSTRATED GIFT BOOKS. 


THE GooD WorTH LIBRARY—continued, 

18, The Boy’s Book of Industrial Information, With 365 En- 
gravings by Dauziet Brothers, 

19. Famous Boys, and How they Became Famous Men. With 
many Engravings, 

20. Triumphs of Perseverance and Enterprise. By THOMAS 
Cooper. With many Engravings, 

21. The Crusades and Crusaders. The Story of the Struggle for 
the Holy Sepulchre. By J. G. EpGar. With full-page Engravings. 

22. The Merchant’s Clerk; or, Mark Wilton. By Rev. C. B. 
Tayer, M.A. With full-page and other Engravings. 

23. The Young Marooners; or, The Adventures of Robert and 
Harold onthe Florida Coast. With many Engravings. 

24. Holiday House. By CATHERINE SINCLAIR. With full-page 
Engravings. 

25. The Boy’s Book of Modern Travel and Adventure. With 
many Engravings. 

26. Mary Bunyan, the Blind Daughter of John Bunyan. By SALLIE 

RocHESTER ForD. With full-page Engravings. 

27. The Scottish Chiefs, By JANE PorTER. With full-page En- 
gravings. 

28. Keble’s Christian Year; or, Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays 
and Holy Days throughout the Year. With full-page Engravings. 

30. Life Thoughts. Gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses 
of HENRY WARD BEECHER. With Red Border Lines, 


31. The Christian Life. Bible Helps and Counsels for Every Day 
throughout the Year. With Red Border Lines. 


32. The Perfect Life. By WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 


3. Sacred Heroes and Martyrs. By J. T. HEADLEY. Revised 
and Edited by J. W. Kirton, LL.D., Author of ‘‘ Buy your own Cherries.” 


LITERARY CURIOSITIES AND ECCENTRICITIES. 
Collected and Edited by W.A. Clouston. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. 


THE TRUE HISTORY OFA LITTLE RAGAMUFFIN. 
By James GREENWOOD, Author of “ Journeys through London,” &c. With 
full-page Illustrations, Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, price 3s. 6d. 


JOURNEYS THROUGH LONDON; or, Bye-Ways of the 
Modern Babylon. By James GREENWoopD, Author of ‘‘ The True History of 
a Little Ragamuffin.”” With Twelve double-page Illustrations, Crown 8vo, 
cloth gilt, price 3s. 6d. 

CHARLES O'MALLEY, the Irish Dragoon, By CHARLES 
Lever. An Entirely New Library Edition of this popular work. Embellished 
a many Original Wood Engravings and attractively bound, cloth gilt, price 

Se 


London: WARD, LOCK & CO., Salisbury Square, E.C. 


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THE FAMILY CIRCLE. LIBRARY. 


A Series of Popular Books, specially re oe Gifts and Rewards, and for 
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Fully Illustrated and handsomely bound, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. each. 
1. Margaret Catchpole (The History of), By Rev. R. COBBOLD. 
With Coloured Plates and other Illustrations. 


2. Beatrice; or, The Unknown Relatives. By CATHERINE SIN- 
CLAIR. With Coloured Plates. 


3. Amy and Hester; or, The Long Holidays. By H. A. Forp. 


With Coloured Frontispiece and many Engravings. 


4. Wonders and Beauties of the Year. Popular and Poetical 
Deccuplens of the Wild Flowers, Birds, and Insects of the Months. By 
H.G. Apams. With Coloured Frontispiece and many Engravings. 

5. Wonders and Curiosities of Animal Life. By GEORGE 
KEARLEY. With Coloured Frontispiece and many Engravings. 

6. Nature’s Gifts, and How we Use them. <A Familiar Account 
of our Everyday Wants, Comforts, and Luxuries. By GrorGEz Dopp. 
With Coloured Frontispiece and other Illustrations. 

7. Modern Society; or, The March of Intellect. By CATHERINE 
Sinctair. With Coloured and other Illustrations. 

8, Herbert Lovell; or, Handsome He who Handsome Does. By 
Rev. F. W. B. Bouverie. With Coloured and other Illustrations. 

9. The Sailor Hero; or, The Frigate and the Lugger. By Captain 
ARMSTRONG. With “Fy etaes Illustrations, 


10. The Cruise of the ‘‘ Daring.”’ A Tale of the Sea. By Capt. 


ARMSTRONG. With full-page Illustrations. 


11, Life’s Contrasts; or, The Four Homes. By Mrs. GOTHER 
Mann. With Coloured Frontispiece and other Illustrations. 


12. Popular Preachers of the Ancient Church: Their Lives and 
their Works. By Rev. W. WiLson. With Illustrations. 


13. Edwin and Mary; or, The Mother’s Cabinet. With Coloured 


Frontispiece and other Illustrations. 


14. The Book of Children’s Hymns and Rhymes. With Co- 


loured Frontispiece and many Engravings. 


15. Looking Heavenward: A Series of Tales and Sketches fat the 
Young. By JANE C, Simpson. With Coloured Frontispiece and many 
Engravings. 

16. Character and Culture. By the Bishop of DuRHAM, Canon 
Date, &c. With Passages selected from the Works of Eminent Divines. 

17. Pilgrims Heavenward. Essays of Counsel and Encourage- 
ment for the Christian Life. With Coloured Frontispiece. 


18, Preachers and Preaching, in Ancient and Modern Times. By 
the Rev. HENRY CHRISTMAS. With Portraits. 


London: WARD, LOCK & CO., Salisbury Square, E£.C. 


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THE FAMILY CIRCLE LIBRARY—condinued. | 
19, Julamerk; or, The Converted Jewess. By Mrs. Webs. With | 


Coloured and other Illustrations. 


20. Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Portfolio, First and Second 
Series Complete. With numerous Illustrations. 


21. Orange Blossoms: A Book for All who have Worn, are Wear- 
ing, or are likely to Wear Them, Edited by T. S. ArTHUR. With 
numerous Illustrations. 


Tale of the Times of Old. With numerous Illustrations. 


23. Modern Accomplishments; or, The March of Intellect. By 
CATHERINE SINCLAIR, With Coloured Plates. 


Pyrotechny ; or, The Art of Making Fireworks with Safety and 
Cleanliness, and at Little Cost. With 124 Illustrations. 


rs) 
_ 


25. Mont Blanc (A Boy’s Ascent of). By ALBERT SMITH. 
With Memoir of the Author by Epmunp Yates. With numerous 
Illustrations. 

26. Poe’s Tales of Mystery, Imagination, and Humour, By 
EpGAR ALLAN Pog. With numerous Illustrations. 


27. Ballads and Poetical Tales. Selected from Percy, RITSON, 
Evans, JAMIESON, ScoTT, &c.  -- > 


28. Beeton’s Book of Birds ; Showing how to Rear and Manage 
them in Sickness and in Health. With Coloured Plates by HARRISON WEIR, 
and over 100 Engravings. 

29. Beeton’s Book of Poultry and Domestic Animals: How 
to Rear and Manage them in Sickness and in Health. With Coloured 
Plates by HarRISON WEIR, and over 100 Engravings. 

30. Getting On in the World; or, Hints on Success in Life. First 
and Second Series Complete. By W1LL1AM MaTHEws. 


31. Journeys through London; or, Bye-ways of the Modern 
Babylon. By James GREENWOOD. With 12 double-page Engravings. 


32. Fanny Fern’s New Stories for Children. By the Author of 
** Fern Leaves.” Illustrated. - 

33. Adventures of Captain Hatteras. Containing ‘‘ The English 
at the North Pole,” and ‘‘The Ice Desert.” By JuLES VERNE. With 
Coloured Plates, 

34. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. _ First and 
Second Series Complete. By JuLEs VERNE. With Coloured Plates. 

35. The Wonderful Travels. Containing ‘‘ Journey into the In- 
terior of the Earth,” and ‘‘ Five Weeks ina Balloon. By JuLES VERNE. 
With Coloured Plates. 


36. The Moon Voyage. Containing ‘‘ From the Earth to the 


se and ‘Round the Moon,” By JuLtes VERNE. With Coloured 
ates. "G 


as 


London: WARD, LOCK & CO., Salisbury Square, E.C. 


oo - 


22. The Martyrs of Carthage; or, The Christian Converts. A 


en 


ed 


PURE LITERATURE BY CHOICE AUTHORS. 


——_—_— 


THE GOOD TONE LIBRARY. 


The Publishers have not bestowed this title upon a series of books without 
good reason. The volumes included under this head are those really High-class 
Works which are most calculated to elevate the mind and give a high tone to the 
character. Containing all the interest of a novel without the objectionable 
features so frequently attaching to that class of literature, these Works, designed 
for the perusal of the Youth of Both Sexes, will be warmly welcomed. For 
School Prizes or Presents they are eminently fitted. They are carefully edited, 
well printed, and elegantly bound. The nantes of the Authors are in themselves 
suffictent evidence of careful selection, and will assure the public that good taste 
and purity of spirit constitute the leading features of the ‘Good TONE LIBRARY.” 


Post 8vo, elegantly bound, cloth gilt, 2s, 6d. each. 
1. The Prince of the House of David. By Rev. J. H. 
INGRAHAM. With Coloured Frontispiece. 


2. The Wide, Wide World. By EL1zABETH WETHERELL. With 


Coloured Frontispiece. 


3. Queechy. By ELIzABETH WETHERELL, With Coloured” 


Frontispiece. 


4. Melbourne House. By ELIZABETH WETHERELL, With 
Coloured Frontispiece. 
. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. By Mrs, H. B. StowE. With Sketch of 
the Life of Rev. Jostan Henson. Coloured and other Illustrations. 


. Stepping Heavenward. By E. PRENTISS. With Coloured 


Frontispiece. 


5 
6 
7, Fairchild Family (History of the), By Mrs, SHERWOOD, 
With Coloured Frontispiece. 

8 

9 


. Anna Lee: the Maiden, the Wife, and the Mother. By T. S. 


ARTHUR. With Illustrations. 


. Flower of the Family. By E. Prentiss. With Coloured 


Frontispiece. 
10. From Jest to Earnest. By E. P. Roz. With Coloured 
Frontispiece. 
11. The Throne of David. By Rev. J. H. INGRAHAM. Illustrated. 
12, The Pillar of Fire. By Rev. J. H. INGRAHAM. Illustrated. 


13. Shiloh ; or, Without and Within. By Mrs, W. M. L. Jay. 
With Coloured Frontispiece. 


14. Holiday House, By CATHERINE SINCLAIR. With Coloured 


Frontispiece. 


15. Little Women, By Louisa M. AtcoTT. With Coloured 


Frontispiece. 


16. Good Wives. Sequel to ‘‘ Little Women.” With Coloured 


Frontispiece. 


17, The Lamplighter, By MissCumMMING. With Coloured Front- 


ispiece. 


London: WARD, LOCK & CO., Salisbury Square, EC, 


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CONRATH & SONS, 
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preparations, purporting to be Stephens Liguid Stains. Consumers are 
advised to insist. on purchasing zopened bottles bearing the dade! 
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HENRY C. STEPHENS, 


171, Aldersgate Street, London, EC. 


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a etl Dnt it en tage tl, cats htt tte - ~ 5+ 


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