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548 University of California Publications in Botany [Vol.8
the vegetative structure of Eudesme J. Ag. A careful comparison of
Wyatt's Mesogloia virescens, no. 49 (Alg. Danm.) with our various
specimens shows so much variation in dimension of zoosporangia and
peripheral filaments that we feel nearly safe in referring all to the
European species which we refer, for reasons given above, to JEgira.
29. Meneghiniella S. and G.
Fronds cylindrical, more or less profusely branched, flaccid and
lubricous, with growth trichothallic ; medulla composed of numerous
colorless filaments compactly coalescing, giving rise to an abundance
of short, usually arcuate, color bearing, cortical filaments, whose lower
branches are transformed into linear, plurilocular gametangia, with
nearly uniseriate loculi, and usually more or less fasciculate ; zoo-
sporangia uncertain.
Setchell and Gardner, Phyc. Cont., VII, 1924, p. 5. Cladosiphon
J. Agardh, Till Alg. Syst., II, 1882, p. 40 (not of Kuetzing).
The genus described above is founded on a plant growing in
the Gulf of California. It seems, however, that our type must be
cogeneric with the Liebmannia Posidoniae Meneghini, whose type
locality is Naples and which was selected by J. G. Agardh as typical of
Kuetzing 's genus Cladosiphon. We have shown above the results of
our attempt to determine the type of JEgira, which have led us to the
conclusion that the genus, as founded by Fries, includes the later
genera published under the names of Cladosiphon, Castagnea, and
Eudesme. Our plants seem to be typically trichothallic and have
longer or shorter, slender, linear gametangia, which are, at times, very
slightly swollen at, or about, the middle. The gametangia arise near
the base of the cortical filaments and are more or less fasciculate. As
we interpret Meneghini 's figures of Liebmannia Posidoniae (1843,
pi. 5, fig. 1), he has represented the gametangia on the upper side of
figure b and also in figure c. A confusion is introduced, however, in
his representation of the contracted contents of the swollen terminal
cells of the cortical filaments (figs, b, d, c, and /) by which they are
made to seem to agree with the gametangia of Liebmannia Levillei
J. Ag. The figures of J. G. Agardh (1882, pi. 2, figs. 3a, 3&) represent
the cortical filaments with their swollen terminal cells and their game-
tangia of his Cladosiphon zostericoJa of Australia which seems clearly
to be referred to Meneghiniella. The genus Meneghiniella, in our esti-
mation, included M. Brandegeei S. and G. (type), M. Posidoniae