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72
THE MARINE ALGÆ OF NEW ENGLAND.
E. fasciculatus, Harv.
Filaments one to eight inches long, erect, tufted, entangled below but free and
feathery above; cells of main branches .05 mm in diameter, about as long as broad;
secondary branches alternate, short, given off at an obtuse angle; ultimate branches
very numerous, secund, ending in a hair; plurilocular sporangia ovate-acuminate or
subulate, sessile or on short stalks, borne principally on the upper side of the
penultimate branches, very variable in size, but averaging from .018-25 mrm broad by
.070-150 mm long; unilocular sporangia sessile, oval, .04-6 mm by .03-45 mm .
Very common on the larger algæ along the whole coast; Europe.
When found in its typical form the present species is easily recognized, but it varies considerably, so
that the extreme forms are not easily determined. It is very common on fronds of Laminaria and other
large Phæosporeæ, on which it forms a dense fringe one or two inches high. The larger forms are much
looser and feathery and the tips of the branches are fasciculate when seen with the naked eye. When
long and slender it becomes the var. draparnaldioides of Crouan. The most puzzling forms are those in
which the filaments are short and thick and the rather stout plurilocular sporangia are arranged
without order on the branches. In this species the unilocular and plurilocular sporangia are more
frequently found growing together on the same individual than in any of the other species found on our
coast.
E. LUTOSUS, Harv., Ner. Am. Bor., Vol. I, p. 140, Pl. 12 a.
Filaments tufted, two to four inches long, densely interwoven in spongy masses;
lower branches opposite, .03-4 mm broad; upper branches irregular, ending in long
hairs; plurilocular sporangia .04-5 mm broad by .15-20 mm long, cylindrical in outline,
ending in very long hairs, which occasionally fork; unilocular sporangia?
Greenport, L. I., Harvey; Wood’s Holl, Mass.
The above description is taken from a species common on Fucus at Wood’s Holl, in May, 1876, which
corresponds very well to the E. lutosus of the Nereis Am. Bor., a species which Harvey states is not
clearly defined. It differs from the description given by Harvey in the fact that the sporangia are not
very long, and it is not impossible that our plant may not be the same as that described by Harvey. The
present species, as we understand it, is short and tufted and the filaments are densely interwoven into
rope-like masses as in E. tomentosus,. The species seem to connect Pylaiella with Euectocarpus,
resembling on the one hand E. siliculosus var. hiemalis, and on the other E. firmus. From the former it
differs in the branching and the shape of the plurilocular sporangia, which are strictly cylindrical,
never being in the least acuminate. From the latter it differs in being more slender and in having the
sporangia always at. the base of very long hairs, which sometimes branch, and not in the continuity of
the branches themselves. The ramification is very like that of E. firmus. In drying the species becomes
decidedly yellow.
E. MITCHELLÆ, Harv., Ner. Am. Bor., Vol. I, p. 142, Pl. 12 g.
“Tufts feathery; filaments very slender, decompoundly much branched; the branches
and their lesser divisions alternate; the ultimate ramuli approximated; angles wide,
and branches and ramuli patent; ramuli