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REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 127
Our most robust and coarsest species, not uncommon in Long Island Sound, but not yet recorded north
of Cape Cod. The color is dark, and in the water almost black, and the substance is rather spongy, the
plant not collapsing when removed from the water, as do most of the New England species of the genus.
C. BAILEYI, Harv. (C. Baileyi, Harv., Ner. Am. Bor., Part III, Pl. 35 b.—
Dorythamnion Baileyi, Næg.) Pl. XI, Figs. 1-2.
Fronds monœcious, two to four inches high, setaceous, shrub-like, pyramidal in
outline, color purplish red, main filaments densely corticated, the rest
monosiphonous; main axis percurrent, attached by a disk, pinnate with long,
undivided, alternate branches, which are once or twice pinnate, the ultimate
divisions beset on all sides with rather slender, flexuous, recurved or incurved,
fasciculate branches; cells several times longer than broad; tetraspores tripartite,
sessile on the upper branchlets; antheridia in tufts on the upper internodes; favellæ
binate.
Var. LAXA.
Cortications less marked than in the type, branchlets long and slender, divisions
widely spreading below, fastigiate at the apex.
On Zostera, stones, sponges, and algæ below low-water mark.
Common from New Jersey to Cape Cod; Boston Bay, Harvey; Portland, C. B. Fuller.
As is suggested by Harvey in the Nereis Am. Bor., the present species is not only very variable in habit,
but it is also difficult to distinguish some of the forms from C. tetragonum. We are inclined to believe
that it would be better to consider the present species as a delicate form of C. tetragonum, in which the
cells are longer and more slender, the branchlets less dense and robust, the color less inclined to
blackish, and the substance more delicate. If we are to unite Rhodomela subfusca, R. gracilis, and R.
Rochei in one species, as has been done by Agardh, with good reason as it seems, it would be equally
correct to unite C. Baileyi and C. tetragonum, since the difference in habit might result from variations
of habitat and season. With us, the form here referred to the typical C. Baileyi is more common than C.
tetragonum, and is found on wharves, on Zostera, shells, and stones in rather warm waters and
sheltered places, while C. tetragonum frequents places where there is a current of water, or grows on
algæ in somewhat exposed pools. The var. laxa has a diffuse ramification and the Cortications are not
prominent, and we at one time supposed that it might be the C. Dietziæ of the Nereis, as far as we could
recollect the specimens of that species in the Harveyan Herbarium at Dublin. In such cases, however, it
is not safe to trust to one’s memory, and in the present article we are unwilling to express an opinion
about C. Dietziæ.
Sect. III. BYSSOIDÆ.
Branching monopodial or dichotomous. Cortications present at the base, ultimate
branches decompound, very delicate, usually ending in a hyaline hair.
C. BYSSOIDEUM, Arn. (C. byssoideum, Phyc. Brit., Pl. 262.—Phlebothamnion
byssoides, Kütz.—Pæcilothamnion byssoideum, Næg.)