Flowerless plants; ferns, mushrooms, mosses, lichens, and seaweeds

SEAWEEDS
along the coast, just below low-tide marks. In Long
Island sound it is quite common.
There is another form of sargassum which you will
like to know about. Great banks or floating meadows
of it are out in the midst of the Atlantic ocean.
These are called the sargasso sea, on account of the
floating plants which form it.
This place was first reported bj' Columbus. His
sailors were frightened at the strange appearance and
wanted to turn back. They thought the vessel would
strike against the rocks. After sailing- for fifteen da} r s
they came into clear water. Since that time the Sar-
gasso sea has interested all sailors. Such an extent of
plants of one kind is not known elsewhere.
Many animals live among this mass of seaweed.
Numerous air vessels make the plants light enough to
bear their weight.
Often the gulfweed surrounds a ship and hinders
its progress, and then again, hours may pass without
a sight of the plant.
This seaweed is found attached to the rocks on the
coast of Florida and in the West Indies. Plants are
sometimes carried by the current northward and are
found washed ashore. Perhaps this is the seaweed
that our poet Longfellow had in mind when he wrote
the following lines
:
140