PLATE XLVIII
CARRAGEEN MOSS (1)
I do not know why this plant should be called a moss, for it is not in the least like the true mosses, as you can easily see by looking at the illustration. It is very common indeed, growing both in the pools among the rocks and also in deep water. But it is not a very easy plant to describe, for it varies very much in colour, being sometimes green, and sometimes yellow, and sometimes purple. Like the dulse, it is often used for food, being boiled down into a kind of jelly, and then either eaten by itself, or mixed with tea or coffee. It makes very good size, too, and is used a good deal in the manufacture of calico. Farmers use it, too, for fattening calves, and also for mixing with the potatoes or meal with which the pigs are fed. So that altogether it is a very useful sea-weed indeed.
1. THE GREEN LAVER.2. THE PURPLE LAVER.
PLATE XLVIII
THE SEA GRASS (2)
This is a very pretty sea-weed, which you may often find growing in great quantities in the pools which are left among the rocks as the tide goes down. When its long, narrow fronds are waving to and fro in the water it really looks most lovely, and you can almost fancy that you are gazing down into fairyland. And as the shrimps and prawns and little fishes dart in and out among its bright green leaves, one might almost imagine them to be the fairies!
The fronds of this pretty sea-weed vary a good deal in width, for sometimes they are like strips of narrow ribbon, and sometimes they are scarcely broader than hairs.