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146
THE MARINE ALGÆ OF NEW ENGLAND.
from Chondrus, to which several of the species were formerly referred, by the structure of the frond and
the arrangement of the tetraspores; from Phyllophora by the absence of a stipe and the immersed
cystocarps.
G. NORVEGICUS, J. Ag. (Sphærococcus Norvegicus, Ag.—Chondrus Norvegicus,
Lyngb.; Phyc. Brit., Pl. 187.—Oncotylus Norvegicus, Kütz.)
Fronds deep red, two to four inches high, linear, dichotomous, flat, fastigiate, axils
rounded, patent, apices obtuse; cystocarps immersed in the upper segments
projecting on both sides of the frond; nemathecia sessile, hemispherical, on both
sides of the frond.
In deep pools on rocks.
Penobscot Bay, Mr. Hooper; Peak’s Island, Maine, W. G. F.; Nahant, W. G. F.;
Beverly, Mass., Miss Alexander. Europe.
Our plant, which is apparently rather rare, is the same as that of Europe, although narrower forms are
sometimes seen which perhaps might be referred to the G. Torreyi of Agardh. G. Griffithsiæ is to be
expected with us, as it is common in Europe. The present species is found only in the autumn and
winter, either in deep cold pools or below low-water mark. Its resemblance to the simpler forms of
Chondrus crispus is so great that it is perhaps mistaken for that species by amateur collectors. Its
color, however, is red rather than purple, and the whole plant is thinner and more delicate than C.
crispus, which, moreover, has quite a different microscopic structure.
G. TORREYI, Ag.
Frond compressed, flattish, dichotomous, fastigiate, segments linear, very narrow,
the axils rounded.
New York, Prof. Agardh.
A species known only by the above description of Agardh. Bailey, in Am. Jour. Sci., Vol. VI, 1848, p. 39,
makes the singular statement, in speaking of Dasya elegans, Ag., that he has examined a fragment of
the original specimen of Sphærococcus Torreyi in the Torrey Herbarium, “which,” he says, “unless I am
greatly mistaken, was founded on a battered specimen of this plant.”
AHNFELDTIA, Fries.
(Named in honor of Nils Otto Ahnfeldt, of Lund.)
Fronds cartilagineo-corneous, subterete, dichotomous or irregularly branched,
composed of densely packed elongated cells within and a horizontal layer of closely
packed short filaments formed of small colored cells; cystocarps immersed in the
fronds; tetraspores in nemathecia which surrounded the branches (?).
A small genus, comprising stiff, wiry, or cartilaginous algæ, whose fructification is not well known. As
it is, the genus is distinguished from Gymnogongrus rather by the rigidity and terete character of the
fronds than by any more definite character, since the fact that the tetraspores in the present genus are
in the nemathecia which surround the branches, even if fully proved, which is not the case, would
hardly constitute sufficient ground for the separation of the genera. In the only common species of the
North Atlantic cystocarps have never been seen and the nemathecia have not been satisfactorily
examined. In Ahnfeldtia gigartinoides of the west coast the cystocarps form nodose swellings in the
upper part of the branches, and there are numerous