Of this plant we have very copious suites of specimens, gathered in the localities above enumerated and varying in length from 2 or 3, to 4 or 8 inches ; most of them are covered with coccidia, though none presents us with a single stichidium ; which is the more remarkable, because, in other species of this genus the latter description of fruit is the most general.
Under the P. coccineum, in the first portion of this work, the reasons for abandoning the genus Thamnojphora are detailed ; whether or not the present plant belongs to Plocamium even, must remain uncertain until the nature of the stichidia is known.
20. RHODYMENIA, Grev.
1. Rhodyjienia palmata, Grev. ; Alg. Brit. p. 93. Fucus palmatus, Engl. Bot. t. 1306.
Hab. Berkeley Sound, Falkland Islands ; abundant. Hermite Islands, Cape Horn ; rare.
The Dulse, so commonly eaten on the coasts of Scotland, is not an unfrequent sea-weed on the shores of the Falkland Islands, where it was quickly recognized by some of the north-country seamen of the ' Erebus' and 'Terror.' In Europe its distribution is from the Canary Islands and Mediterranean Sea, to the coasts of Norway and Ireland. Dr. Greville mentions that it is a native of the shores of Brazil.
2. Rhodyjienia sobolifera, Grev. ; Alg. Brit. p. 95. Fucus soboliferus, Eng. Bot. t. 2133.
Hab. Falkland Islands ; iu Berkeley Sound, and on the exposed outer sea-coast ; abundant. Apparently identical with a sea-weed which inhabits the western shores of Ireland, Scotland, and the Orkney- Isles, and has also been gathered on the west coasts of France. It is scarcely more than a variety of R. palmata, whether occurring in the north or south temperate oceans.
3. Rhodyjienia corallina, Bory; in Buperrey Toy. Bot. Crypt, p. 1 75. 1. 16.
Hab. Christmas Harbour, Kerguelen's Land ; rare.
We have referred our single specimen, without fruit, to this species j with which it appears entirely to agree. The species is not uncommon along the Pacific shores of South America, between the latitude of Concepcion and the Equator.
4. Rhodyjienia Palmetla, Grev. ; Alg. Brit. p. 88. 1. 12.
Hab. Straits of Magalhaens, If Urville ; Falkland Islands, Gamdichand.
Of this species we have seen no southern examples.
5. Rhodyjienia /7»3n'afa, Grev. ; Synops. p. 48. Spheerococcus fimbriatus, Agardh, Spec. Alg. vol. i. p. 299.
Hab. Falkland Islands, Gaudichaud.
This again is a plant which we do not recognize amongst the collections brought from the Southern Hemisphere.
6. Rhodyjienia variegata, Montagne; inlfOrUgny Voy.^. 22. and 116 in Obs. Halymenia variegata, Bory in Duperrey Toy. Bot. Crypt, p. 179. 1. 14. R. Hookeri, Harv. in Bond. Tourn. of Bot. vol. iv. p. 258. R. glaphyra, Snhr, in Flora, 1839, vol. i. p. 69. t. 2. f. 43.
Var. a. flabellata ; fronde stipitata rosea v. sanguinea flabellata fere ad basin partita, laciniis manifeste flabelliformibus basi cuneatis repetite di-trivel palmatim dichotomis, laciniis linearibus j-i unc. latis,
