. The natural history of plants, their forms, growth, reproduction, and distribution;. Botany. THALLOPHYTA. 665 number of irregular fleshy lobes, which are produced into branching, whip-like filaments. Its tissues possess a curious honey-combed structure. It is stated that in Chili, &c., D. utilis is used as an article of food. Sargassum is distinguished by its high differentiation. It has cylindrical stalks bearing leaf-like appendages, and little stalked spherical air-bladders, and receptacles for the sexual organs. Some 150 species of this very varied genus are known, scattered over the
. The natural history of plants, their forms, growth, reproduction, and distribution;. Botany. THALLOPHYTA. 665 number of irregular fleshy lobes, which are produced into branching, whip-like filaments. Its tissues possess a curious honey-combed structure. It is stated that in Chili, &c., D. utilis is used as an article of food. Sargassum is distinguished by its high differentiation. It has cylindrical stalks bearing leaf-like appendages, and little stalked spherical air-bladders, and receptacles for the sexual organs. Some 150 species of this very varied genus are known, scattered over the warmer zones of the world. Particular interest attaches to the Gulf-weed (Sargassum bacciferum, fig. 378) which forms the chief component of the floating masses of Sargassum in certain regions of the Atlantic. The Sargasso Sea has received its name from the enormous amounts of this floating weed which are met with there. It occupies an area in the Atlantic perhaps equal to that of the continent of Europe. There are two main accumulations, the larger south-west of the Azores, the smaller situated between the Ber- mudas and Bahamas, whilst connect- ing them is a narrow belt. The exact nature of these accumulations is not ascertained. According to one view the Gulf-weed actually lives a pelagic life, growing and multiplying in this huge eddy in mid-ocean, and is thoroughly adapted to its special environment; whilst, on the con- tending hypothesis, the vegetation of the Sargasso Sea is purely ephem- eral, does not reproduce, and is con- stantly renewed by ocean currents, which bring with them countless fragments forcibly torn by tempests from the shores of Florida and the Bahamas. It is further alleged that the floating Gulf-weed is met with only in a condition more or less unhealthy (moribund) and in various states of decomposition. The weak point in the latter hypothesis is the lack of convincing evidence to show that 8. haccifermti grows attached in the region of the West Indie
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1895
