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REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 73
attenuate; articulations of the branches twice or thrice as long as broad, of the
ramuli once and a half as long; propagula elliptic-oblong or linear, quite sessile and
very obtuse, transversely striate, several to gether.” (Harvey, l. c.)
Nantucket, Miss Mitchell.
Only known from the description and plate in the Nereis.
SUBGENUS PYLAIELLA, Bory.
Both forms of sporangia formed from the cells in the continuity of the branches, and
not by a transformation of special branches.
In the present subgenus one might, at first sight, be inclined to include E. siliculosus var. hiemalis and
E. lutosus, but in those species the sporangia are rather situated at the end of branches, which are
prolonged beyond the sporangia in the form of hairs, than in t he continuity of the branches themselves.
E. LITTORALIS, Lyngb. (Ectocarpus firmus, Ag.—Pilayella littoralis, Kjellman.)
Filaments tufted or irregularly expanded at the base, two to ten inches long;
branches numerous, usually opposite, given off at wide angles, erect; cells .02-4 mm
broad; plurilocular sporangia irregularly cylindrical, very variable in size; unilocular
sporangia formed of from two to thirty contiguous cells, .02-3 mm broad; fertile
branches moniliform.
Var. ROBUSTUS. (Ectocarpus Farlowii, Thuret, in Farlow’s List of the Marine Algæ of
the United States, 1876.)
Filaments three or four inches long, densely branching; branches robust, opposite or
irregular; cells .03-5 mm in breadth; fertile branches short and rigid, often
transformed through nearly their whole length into unilocular sporangia, which are
stout and cylindrical, only slightly moniliform at maturity; cells .04 mm broad and .03-
4 mm in length.
Very common along the whole coast.
Var. robustus in exposed places from Nahant northward.
A very common species on our coast, which, although offering numerous forms, cannot, as it seems to
us, be well specifically divided. When growing on wharves, where it is very common, or on other wood
work, it forms expansions of indefinite extent from which rise tufts several inches long. The basal or
prostrate portions branch very irregularly, and the cells are infested with Chytridia and other
parasites. If species of Ectocarpus could be formed from sterile specimens, the basal portions of E.
littoralis would offer a rich field to the species-maker. What is called var. robustus has not yet been
found south of Cape Cod, but is common on the northern coast on Fuci and other algæ exposed to the
action of the waves. The original E. Farlowii was founded on specimens collected by Mr. Higbee, at
Salem, in November, 1874, and pronounced by the late M. Thuret, in a letter dated April 26, 1875, to be
distinct from E. littoralis. In the Contributiones ad Algologiam et Fungologiam Pl. 20, Reinsch figures,
under the name of Ectocarpus anticostiensis, a form which, as far as can be