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REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 103
SARGASSUM, Ag.
(From sargazo, the Spanish name for the gulf-weed)
Fronds attached by a disk having branching stems, leaves with a midrib and
distinctly stalked air-bladders; fruit in special compound branches; conceptacles
hermaphrodite; spores single in the mother-cell.
The most highly organized and by far the largest genus of the Fucaceæ, of which at least 150 species
have been described. They inhabit the warmer waters of the globe, where they replace the Fuci.
Australia, Japan, and the adjacent coast of Asia are particularly rich in species. We have one species
which does not come north of Cape Cod, but which is common southward. The genus has been
subdivided by Kützing, but even with his limitation the species of Sargassum are very numerous.
S. VULGARE, Ag. (Fucus natans, Turner’s Hist. Fuc., Pl. 46, non Linn.—S. vulgare,
Phyc. Brit., Pl. 343.)
Fronds two to five feet long, stem filiform, smooth, irregularly branching, leaves
shortly petiolate, linear-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, one to three inches long, a
quarter to half an inch wide, sharply serrate, midrib distinct, cryptostomata
numerous on both sides of the midrib; air-bladders spherical, quarter of an inch in
diameter, stalked, arising from a transformed leaf, the upper part of which often
remains as an appendage; stalks naked or slightly winged; receptacles filiform,
branching cymosely, one to two inches long.
Var. MONTAGNEI. (S. Montagnei, Bailey, in Ner. Am. Bor., Vol. I, Pl. 1 a.)
Leaves narrowly linear, elongated, receptacles two to four inches long.
Below low-water mark in warm, shallow bays from Cape Cod southward.
In spite of its variations, with the exception of S. bacciferum, which is sometimes washed ashore, we
have but one species of Sargassum on our coast. As usually found, it is more slender in all its parts
than the typical S. vulgare of the West Indies, but it is occasionally found of the typical form. In var.
Montagnei, which is common, we have an extreme form, in which the fructifying branches are much
elongated, but one sees all variations from short to long.
S. BACCIFERUM, Ag.—Gulf-weed. (Fucus natans, L,; Turner’s Hist. Fuc., Pl. 47.—S.
bacciferum, Phyc. Brit., Pl. 109.)
Fronds six inches to a foot and a half long, stems filiform, smooth, leaves linearlanceolate,
two to four inches long, midrib distinct, crypto-stomata usually wanting;
air-bladders stalked, spherical, tipped with a filiform point; receptacles short,
cylindrical, forked.
Washed ashore at Bath, L. I., Mr. A. R. Young, and found floating off the coast near
the Gulf Stream; West Indies, and floating in the Atlantic.
The common Gulf-weed, which grows attached in the West Indies, where it