Intermediate between Halidrys and the true fuci is placed the genus Cystoceira. One of the most elegant of this charming genus is the heath-like species, Cystoceira ericoides. On the shores of the south of England especially, and over a very considerable geographical range, extending even to the north of Africa, it may be gathered at almost any period of the summer or autumn. Under the water it glows with prismatic colours, and as each twig waves to and fro, the hues vary as the light glances on its fronds; and while some “seem covered with sky-blue flowers, others remain dark.” In the air it presents only a glossy yellow, and in the herbarium all its enchanting beauties of colour are gone, and unless very great pains and skill have been exercised in the manipulation, it will have shrunk in drying, and turned black.
Magnified View of Receptacle and Vesicle at Apex of Branch of Cystoceira ericoides.
In passing, it will be as well to gather specimens of the rather stiff and cylindrical Pycnophycus tuberculatus, standing alone as it does sui generis.
Of the true fuci, at page 108 is already figured the knotted one, of which Scotch boys make whistles (Fucus nodosus), and that with the saw-like edges (Fucus serratus), p. 109; but the ordinary bladder-bearing sort, the Fucus vesiculosus, and the more translucent and bladderless or smooth kind, the Fucus ceranoides, and indeed the whole genus, though common in the extreme, have high claims to the attention of designers, not alone in the elegance of their outlines and the disposition of their fronds, but as being the very types and models of sea-weeds.
The Fucus vesiculosus was at one time, particularly in the Orkney Isles, regularly cropped for the manufacture of kelp, and it is also known to contain a valuable portion of the sweet principle called mannite. In the cold and inhospitable regions of the polar lands, where the thick snow has buried the scanty herbage of the fields, the rocks furnish in their meadows of fuci abundant fodder for the hungry kine, which regularly, at the retreat of the tide, come down to graze; and if these pages were not devoted to other arts than the culinary, one might not unentertainingly give a disquisition on edible sea-weeds, and on the various means by which they are made subservient to the luxuries or necessities of man.
The Icelanders, Greenlanders, the Chinese, and the East Indians have already made some progress in this department; and nearer home, the Chondrus crispus, “carrageen,” or Irish moss, figured at page 120, has long ago been placed on the table, in soup, jellies, and blanc-manges.
Or, if the natural history of the class were the object, one might with equal pleasure dwell on the marvellous exhibition of the strange animal-like motions of the troops of zoospores which issue from the thick yellow slime exuded from the ripe receptacles of the Fucus serratus—motions apparently so voluntary that it is difficult to consider them as concordant with mere vegetation.
