condiment, when it grows near low-water
mark is purple, and near high-water
mark, yellowish or greenish. The jellyweed
(Condrus crispus) is similarly affected.
The smooth-little-pitcher plant (Ceramium
rubrum), so called from the appearance of its
capsules, is found of every colour, from red
to white, according to its habitat. The
colours of many sea-plants perish the moment
they are removed from the sea-water. Heath-
like sack-chain (Cystoseira ericoides) loses,
the instant it quits the water, the rich
phosphoric greens and blues which play and
flicker upon it in the sea-gardens.

Looking down from a boat, the observer
can scarcely attend to more than the general
effects of the ocean scenery. Exhilerated by
the air, and delighted by novel loveliness, he
is scarcely in a mood to scrutinise the form
of particular plants. The general aspect of
the sea-gardens is brown. Social in their
habits, and numerous as individuals, the
fourteen British species of brown plants cover
more surface of tidal rocks than all the other
four or five hundred kinds. From them it is
that, as the colour green paints the terrestrial,
the colour brown paints the littoral vegetation.
Unlike the terrestrial meadows, the
aquatic fields are brown,—brown as the
mountain heaths—brown as the winter woods.
While the name of the savans, Laminaria,
feebly hints that the fronds of certain brown
plants are thin plates, the name of the Scotch
Highlanders hits off the description of their
appearance by calling them sea-wands.
Forests of brown sea-wands bend to the
undulations of the tides upon the exposed brows
of submarine rocks around the coasts of the
British islands. Fuci—the Greek name for
sea-weeds—generally has been applied by the
savans to the abundant brown plants with
air-bladders in their fronds. Scotch coast
folks call an edible species of them badder-
locks (bladder-locks) and, indeed, they are
locks of bladders. At low tides extensive
belts of rocks, covered by brown plants, when
left dry and supine by the sea, are described
as black rocks. The entwined condition of
the plants is, I suppose, described by the
English name— tangle. When left by the sea
a strangely tangled mass is formed by
intertwined sea-girdles or sea-wands (Laminaria
digitata), sea-furbelows (Laminaria bulbosa),
sea-belts (Laminaria saccharina) badder-
locks (Alaria esculenta) and knobbed wrack
or crackers (Fucus nodosus). Crackers will
remind coast boys, generally, of the times
upon times when they threw this plant
into the blazing evening fire, and produced
explosions to the astonishment of the feminine
household.

When sea-wands and sea-furbelows
overshadow deep, steep, rock-pools, the sides of
the rocks are generally decked with rosy
plants of luxuriant colours. The land-roses
front the sun, the red plants of the sea
court the shade. In the darkest pools are the
most beautiful things. Most of the British
red plants grow only to about five or six
inches in length. The spotted shiny-leaf
(Nitophyllum punctatum) has, however, been
found five feet in height and three in breadth.
The braided hair of the Greeks (Plocamum
coccineum) is a very common purple plant
which grows in tufts in open spots in the
pools.

When looking down into a rock valley, the
brows of the rocks are seen to be darkened
by brown plants, their sides festooned by red
plants, and the exposed sunny spots tenanted
by green plants. There is all the cunning of
nature in the harmony of their forms and
colours. Green thread-cells, called confervæ,
grow wherever there is humidity. The
thread-cells of the sea are similar to the
confervæ of the land. Oyster-green, or laver, is
the most common of green marine plants,
The glossy, oval, flat fronds of the short,
stumpy ulva are exceedingly graceful in their
own homes. They are the plants of the
water especially, being named ulva from the
Celtic word ul (water). The green intestine-
like plants, Enteramorpha, are as widely
distributed. Conferva, enteramorpha, and ulva,
are seen everywhere upon the shores of the
globe.

Lamouroux, the man to whom we are
indebted for most of our sea-weed lore, has
divided the sea-gardens into the green, the
olive, and the red zones. Just when we sail
out between the pier-heads of our harbour,
or step beyond high tide mark, we have
entered the green zone. When sailing above
the tidal rocks we are above the olive zone.
When offshore, and beyond low water-mark,
we are floating over the red zone.

The forms of the ocean flora are as various
as their colours. There are marine plants
which can be seen only by aid of the
microscope; and there are marine plants
whose stems rival the masts of the tallest
ships. Some of them are just strings of little
bags adhering to each other, end to end.
Some are nothing but branched threads. The
tissue of many of them expands into broad,
flat fronds. There are a few of the marine
plants which seem to have leaves of netted
lace. There are silky, jelly-like, gelatinous,
leathery, gristly, woody, streaked, and veined
fronds. There are fronds like hair, like twine,
and like thread. There are fronds which are
like tubes, like spathes, like bags, like
kidneys, like hands, like eggs, like tongues, like
combs, like lances, like spears, like fans, like
sickles, like swords, like wedges, like teeth,
and like hearts. Fronds are cleft, bi-lobed,
forked, jointed, tied, notched, fringed, wavy,
rounded at the base, rounded at the top,
rolled together, rolled upwards, and rolled
backwards. There are tufted and there are
level-topped fronds. Some are laminated,
and some are whorled. Who is there who
has not seen beautiful collections of sea-
weeds? Many persons have doubtless turned