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100
THE MARINE ALGÆ OF NEW ENGLAND.
Am. Bor., Vol. I, p. 68.—Fucodium nodosum, J. Ag.—Ozothallia nodosa, Dcne. &
Thuret.—Ascophyllum nodosum, Le Jolis; Études Phycolologiques, Pls. 18-20.)
Fronds diœcious, one to five feet long, coriaceous, compressed, subdichotomous,
margin distantly toothed; air-bladders oblong, broader than the frond; receptacles
ovoid or ellipsoidal, terminating short lateral branches, which are borne either
solitary or clustered in the axils of the teeth.
Common between tide-marks from New Jersey northward; Europe; Arctic Ocean.
One of our most common species, easily recognized by the large bladders in the continuity of the frond,
which is thick and narrow and entirely destitute of a midrib. The fruit is found in lateral branches in
winter and spring, and in June the receptacles fall off and are sometimes found in immense quantities
covering the bottoms of tide-pools.
FUCUS, (L.) Dcne. & Thuret.
(From φυκος [phykos], a sea-weed.)
Fronds diœcious or hermaphrodite, attached by a disk, plane, costate, dichotomous,
margin entire or serrate, often furnished with air-bladders; receptacles terminal,
continuous with the frond; spores eight in a mother-cell.
In the beginning of the present century the name Fucus was used not only to designate all the plants
included in the present order, but was applied to all marine algæ. Since that date the word has been
used in a more and more restricted sense, and is now only applied to those members of the Fucaceæ in
which the spores are in eights and in which the frond is plane and costate. In some of the species,
however, the midrib is rather indistinct. Most of our species are very abundant and very variable, and
older writers have described as species a good many forms which are now considered to be merely
varieties. Hence the synonymy of the species is in confusion, although our species, none of which are
peculiar to America, can be referred to definite European forms. The species described by De la Pylaie
in the Flore de Terre-Neuve are most of them to be referred to older species. The New England species
naturally fall into two different groups. In the first, of which F. vesiculosus is the type, the fronds are
diœcious and the midrib distinct throughout. In the second, represented by F. evanescens, they are
hermaphrodite and the midrib indistinct.
F. VESICULOSUS, L.; Phyc. Brit, Pl. 204; Études Phycol., Pl. 15.
Fronds diœcious, six inches to three feet long, stipitate, midrib distinct throughout,
margin entire, often wavy; bladders spherical or slightly elongated, usually in pairs;
receptacles swollen, ellipsoidal or oval, often forked.
Exs.—Algæ Am. Bor., Farlow, Anderson & Eaton, No. 109.
Var. laterifructus, Grev.
Lateral branches, which bear the receptacles, narrow and densely dichotomously
flabellate.