Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 6 (1802).djvu/165

Four new Species of Fucus. 131 minis rapae, verrucosa, pallide rubentia, seminibus repleta, utrique frondis paginae insidentia. Substantia coriacea. Color e fusco saturate sanguineus, fugacissimus, et in sordido-flavescentem trans- iens. Var. ß. substantia tenuiore, margine integro, apicibus plerumque ob- tusissimis. In selecting for description this Portuguese Fucus, in preference to many more beautiful as well as more rare species, which my friends have been so obliging as to procure for me from foreign shores, I am actuated principally by the hope that it may thereby be in my power to throw some light upon the botany of my own country ; what I confider a variety of this having been found abun- dantly at Dover by my friend Mr. L. W. Dillwyn, and by him obligingly communicated to me in the course of the late autumn. When this plant becomes more generally known and understood, it may probably admit of well-founded discussion how far what I have now made a variety may not in reality be a distinct species ; and I have little doubt but almost every botanist, who has only an oppor- tunity of examining them in a dry state, will immediately decide in favour of the latter opinion. For my own part, I can only say that I have had many specimens of each under my observation, and that, after having frequently examined and compared them as attentively as was in my power, I could find no permanent difference between them ; though the English plant is strikingly dissimilar at first sight, in having the edges of the frond far more entire, the ends generally blunt and frequently emarginate, but neither of these are constant, and the angles of the forks much less acute. The final determina- tion of this point must be reserved for future investigation: it is suf- ficient for my purpose here to show how this species differs from its congeners. Fucus crenulatus was brought me in such quantity from S 2