Gambar halaman
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attain to an unusual size. The substance of the different species varies from coriaceous to membranous, and gelatinous; their colours also are very different: both which circumstances I have mentioned under the several individuals, and have likewise, as far as I was able, noticed the changes produced in their hues from exposure to the sun, decay, or other circumstances."

As a specimen of the work itself we shall select the concluding article, and we have given it the preference partly on account of its shortness, but chiefly because it gives, with a description of the plant, a pleasing picture of the author's mind.

"FUCUS VIRIDIS.

"F. fronde supra-decomposito-pinnatâ ; ramis ramulisque omnibus oppositis capillaceis. Fl. Dan. t. 886. "At Scarborough, Sir Thomas Frankland; among the rejectamenta of the sea at Yarmouth. "Annual.

"Root, a small, callous, roundish knob; frond in general solitary, quite cylindrical, rising with an undivided stem, scarcely larger than packthread at the base, and thence gradually tapering to the summit, two feet or more long, pinnated throughout its whole length with long branches, disposed at the distance of about half an inch from each other, always opposite, capillary, and again pinnated with others still smaller, which in their turns produce a third, and sometimes a fourth, or fifth series, wherein all are constantly opposed. The fructification is hitherto unknown. The substance is cartilaginous: the colour, when fresh, a beautiful orange, but so fugitive, that, after a few minutes exposure to the air, it becomes a pale, verdigris green, and, if kept some time in fresh-water, turns to a light reddish brown.

"This fucus, which from the singular property it possesses of repeatedly changing its colour, might with much propriety be called the chameleon of the marine alge, is by that curious circumstance sufficiently distinguished from all its congeners; and, considered

as to its nature, has not so close affinity with any one of the British list as with F. ligulatus, from which, in its exterior formation, it is so widely different. Its cylindrical stem, pinnated with capillary, opposite branches, themselves clothed in the same manner with other, and this series repeatedly continued, will at once distinguish it from every other of the same division, even in a dried state, when its variation of tints necessarily ceases to be visible. The name of viridis is extreme

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objectionable, as giving a false idea, and consequently apt to mislead; but I have nevertheless retained it, since it was the one by which it was called in the Flora Danica, where this rare species was, for the first time, described and figured. It was gathered above ten years ago among the rejectamenta of the sea upon the Yarmouth beach, and in some summers is tolerably plentiful there during the months of July and August, in others it never makes its appearance. Sir Thomas Frankland has also found it in a growing state at Scarborough, but it must at present be reckoned among the most rare of the British catalogue. Analogy will not assist us in forming any probable conjecture upon the mode of its fructification, as it does not bear a sufficiently strong resemblance to any yet discovered in fruit. Much therefore remains to be observed, even among those phænomena attending these vegetables that may be considered most open to our inspection, and the conclusion of this work must be in the same strain as the beginning, that I am fully conscious of its numerous imperfections, and propose it only as an humble essay, resting the sole claim that it possesses to merit upon its faithfully recording actual facts and observations. I would fain hope that the attempt, however insignificant, may be the means of stimulating others to future inquiry; and I can assure the philosophical naturalist, that, while the more stupendous works of the Divine hand arrest the attention of even the most careless observer, and, in a language equally understood by all ages and all nations, declare the glory of God, these humble vegetables will, by the inquisitive mind, be found by no means wanting in affording adễtional proofs both of the wisdom and ber afcence of the great Creator."

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