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56
THE MARINE ALGÆ OF NEW ENGLAND.
in diameter, clothed with secondary branches, which are divaricately divided and
furnished with secund ultimate branches; cells several times longer than broad.
In brackish ditches. Summer.
Wood’s Holl; Maiden, Mass.
To the present species may be referred the greater part of the New England specimens of brackish
water referred to C. fracta. It is at first tufted, but soon rises to the top of shallow ditches and coves,
and forms an intricately interwoven mass. It is distinguished from C. fracta by the greater size of the
main branches and the fact that the diameter of the secondary branches is always much less than that
of the main branches, whereas in the true C. fracta the branches gradually diminish in size. In some
specimens the branches are clothed at intervals with very short fasciculated ramuli. The species when
in its tufted condition resembles some of the forms of C. gracilis. It also approaches the C. fracta of the
Algæ Danmonienses, said by Harvey to be rather C. flavescens.
C. FRACTA, (Fl. Dan.) Kütz.
“Tufts irregular, entangled, often detached, and then forming floating strata, dull
green; filaments rather rigid, distantly branched, the lesser branches somewhat
dichotomous, spreading, with very wide axils; the ramuli few, alternate or secund;
articulations 3-6 times as long as broad, at first cylindrical, then elliptical, with
contracted nodes.” (Harvey, Nereis Am. Bor., Part III, p. 83.)
Salt-water ditches and ponds.
West Point, Prof. Bailey; Beesley’s Point, Ashmead; New York, Walters; Baltimore,
Md.
We have quoted from the Nereis the description given by Harvey. It is doubtful whether under the
name C. fracta he referred to the species of that name as recognized by Scandinavian botanists. The
only marine locality of this species which we have examined is in the vicinity of the Marine Hospital,
Baltimore. As we understand the species, it is much finer than C. expansa, the cells being from .02-8 mm
in diameter, those of the main branches tapering gradually into those of the secondary branches, while
in the last-named species the transition is sudden. The branches are less numerous and more irregular
in their mode of branching in C. fracta than in C. expansa.
C. MAGDALENÆ, Harv., Phyc. Brit., Pl. 335 a.
Filaments one to three inches long, decumbent, entangled, coarse, blackish green;
branches given off at obtuse angles, flexuous, with very few curved, irregularly
placed branchlets; cells .04-8 mm in diameter, about 2-4 times as long as broad.
Napatree Point, R. L, Prof. Eaton.
This rather unsightly and insignificant species is recognized by its procumbent habit and dingy green
color, and by having but few branches, which are arranged without any definite order, and are given off
at very obtuse angles from the main filaments. It may be doubted whether the species is not a reduced
form of some other.