The English flora - SeaweedAfrica

264 ALG^ INARTICULATE. [Sargassum.
CRYPTOGAMIA ALG.E.
Plants foliaceous, spreading or filiform, inarticulate (or rarely and
only apparently articulated).
Div. I. INARTICULATE
Fronds more or less spreading, rarely filiform, never distinctly
jointed. Gen. 1—55.
Tribe I. Fucoide^s.
Plants all marine, of an olive-brown or olive-green colour, becoming
black on exposure to the air ; ofafirm, coriaceous or ligneous
substance andfibrous texture, tearing with facility in a longitudinal
direction. Frond with a hard scutate root, furnished in many
species with distinct leaves. Vesicles or air-vessels generally present,
which are either uniform dilatations of particidar parts, or
distinct bodies supported on little stalks. Fructification ; tubercles
contained in distinct receptacles, or imbedded in thefrond, and containing
dark-coloured seeds surrounded with a pellucid limbus, and
escaping by a terminal pore. Grev.
1. Sargassum. Ag. Sargassum.
Frond leaved. Leaves stalked, with a midrib. Air-vessels
simple, axillary, stalked. Receptacles small, linear, tuberculated
(mostly in axillary clusters or racemes). Seeds in distinct cells.
Grev. Alg. Brit. p. \.t. 1.—Name, from the Spanish sargazo,
applied to the floating masses of this genus, which, in the seas
of warmer climates, are so abundant as even to impede the pro-
gress of vessels.
1. S. vulgdre, Ag. (common Sargassum); stem compressed
filiform pinnated, branches alternate simple, leaves linear-lance-
olate serrated, vesicles sphaerical on flat petioles, receptacles
cylindrical racemose. Ag. Sp. Alg. v. I. p. 3. Grev. Alg. Brit.
p. 2. t. 1.
—
Fucus nutans, Turn. Hist. Fuc. t. 46. E. Bot.
t. 2114.
Occasionally cast ashore on the Orkney islands, wafted by the
currents, probably from the West Indies, along with other exotic pro-
ductions.
2. S. bacciferum, Ag. (berry-bearing Sargassum); stem cy-
lindrical filiform bipinnate, branches alternate mostly simple,
leaves linear serrated, vesicles serrated on cylindrical petioles.
Ag. Sp. Alg. v. 1. p. 6. Grev. Alg. Brit. p. 3. Fucus bacciferus,
Turn. Hist. Fuc. t. 47. E. Bot. t. 1967.
Sometimes wafted, like the last, to the Orkney islands. Shore of
Castle Eden Dean, Durham j Mr. W. Backhouse.
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