The case is very different with the beautiful Dictyotaccæ, in which family is included the splendid Padina pavonia, with hues nearly as bright and as rich as the “eye-spots” on the tail of the glorious bird from which its specific name is taken. Such a marine beauty was not likely to escape the attention of even early naturalists, and we accordingly find it mentioned in the writings of Bauchin and others. Ellis, although he has no business with it, cannot resist the temptation to figure it in his famous book on Corallines.
In the genus Cutleria we are presented with some attractive novelties, but the typical genus Dictyota merits special attention.
If the number and variety of names by which an algal was known had any connection with its charms or its rarity, one
Stilophora rhizodes.
Section of a Sorus of Stilophora rhizodes.
member at least of the characteristic group, the Dictyota atomaria ought to be—as it really is—both rare and beautiful. The ancient nomen triviale of Phasiana expresses well, in its allusion to the plumage of that handsome bird, the barred and zigzag markings caused by the scattering in the substance of the frond—almost as one would cast grains of sand or seeds by the hand—of the dark-coloured spores or germs. The whole plant, too, exhibits those most delicate gradations of the primitive hue which are not the least remarkable characteristic of all sea-weeds. And in what are our designers more deficient—especially those employed in the decoration of our houses—than in simple and delicate contrasts, or more especially in those almost insensible gradations of colours which are so admirable in their effect, and which are so invariably presented to us alike in the sombre olive and in the bright greens and reds of the sea-weeds? We have no power to express these natural gradations in our woodcuts, but there is certainly much in this way worthy of patient study. In this large and extensive family there are yet more instances of how various sections and magnificent portions may possess artistic value. The section of a sorus of Stilophora rhizodes seems, for example, so like the representation of a fragment of jewellery, that it cannot fail to excite wonder that a source so prolific should have been neglected by our workers in gold and silver, and our setters of pearls and precious stones.
The Mesogloia vermicularis, one of the gelatinous Chordariaceæ, is an ugly weed, but the filaments of the fronds are worthy, notwithstanding, of being placed under the power of the microscope and viewed by an artist.
