The Iridea edulis, Edible Dulse, is a favourite food with many of the Crustacee, as lobsters, crabs, &c. : it is also eaten by fishermen, both raw and roasted. It is said to resemble in flavour roasted oysters. The Hal ymenia palmate was at one time used as a masticatory, but its use has been supplanted by tobacco. It is still, however, used as a popular remedy in scorbutic and other cutaneous diseases. " To the Icelanders it is a plant of considerable importance. They prepare it by washing it well in fresh water, and exposing it to dry, when it gives out a white powdery substance, which is sweet and palatable, ant covers the whole plant They then pack it in make to keep it from the air, and thus preserve it ready to bo eaten, either in this state with I flab and butter, or, according to the practice of wealthier table's, belled in milk, and mixed with a little flour of rye. The cattle are also very fond of this sea-weed, and sheep are said to seek it with such avidity as often to be lost, by going too far from the land at low-water" Quart. Rev.,' vii. 6S.) From this latter circumstance it was called Feces urines, or Sheep Duke. in Kaintehatka it is used for making a fermented beverage, which Is easily produced on account of the great quantity of sugar this plant contains.
Amongst the RIvnlynosniarc(r is the genus Gracillaria, the species of which are also used as food, and one of them, G. lichenoides, is highly valued in Ceylon an I other parts of the East, and bears a great resemblance to 0. rompressa, a species of the British coast, and which Dr. Greville says is little inferior to the first, and has been used in this country both as a pickle and a preserve. The 0. tenor, the Facet: tenor of Turner, is invaluable to the Chinese as the basis of an excel lent glue and varnish. " Though a small plant," says Dr. Greville, " the quantity annually imported at Canton from the provinces of Fokein and Tchikiang is stated by Mr. Turner to be about 27,00011,a It is sold for Q. or Sd. per pound, and is used for the purposes to which we apply glue and gum arabic. The Chinese employ it chiefly in the manufacture of lanterns, to strengthen or varnish the paper, and sometimes to thicken or give a gloss to silks or gauze." Mr. Neill thinks it probable that the gummy matter called chin-ehou, or Ind-teal, in China and Japan, may be composed of this substance. 'Windows made of slips of bamboo, and crossed diagonally, have frequently their interstices wholly filled with the transparent glue of hal-tsai.
A celebrated vermifuge on the Continent is prepared from the 11.Imei hororton, a genus which grows in the Mediterranean, and goes by the n into of the Coralline of Coraica. It has also been recommended as a remedy in cancer, but is seldom used in this country.
The Plocami um, or Hair-Flag (Delearriace(r), is one of the most elegant plants of this section. It was formerly used much in the construction
of artificial landscapes on paper, and its collection and preparation give employment to many of the poor on our coasts.
The order Cerastiatem contains six genera, one of which is the Griffithsia, a plant named after Mrs. Griffiths, who has done much to advance the knowledge of the order Alpe in Croat Britain. The most extensive genera in this tribe are Cala thamnion and Pot ysiphonia. Most of the species belonging to these two genera are natives of the 83ii, and are found attached to rocks, and to shells, stones, and eorallines which are thrown up by the waves. Many of them are also found parasitic upon the larger sea-algre, as the various species of P•uewr and others.
The Chlorospermere include the orders Siphonaear, Conferrarctr, Crocco., Oreillatoriarece, -Vostocacur, and Palmellarear.
The order consists of plants which are found in the sea, in fresh water, or ou damp ground, of an herbaceous green colour.
The frond is either composed of membranaceoua, filiform, continuous, simple, or branched tubs" or formed of a combination of similar tubes, forming a spongy or crustaceous, globular, cylindrical, or flat body ; the reproductive organs are vesicles produced on the outer !surface of the tubes, filled with a dark green granular mass. This tribe contains four geuera : Codium, Bryopsis, Vaacheria, and Bo'rydiaet. The most interesting genus is Vaucheria, on account of the remarkable observations that have been made upon its repro ductive granules by Unger and other botanists. [Val:Tumuli.) Codifies, the Sea-Purse, is a hollow, sub.globose, dark green plant, composed of an interwoven rams of tubular continuous filaments, the reproductive resides being attached to the filaments near the surface of the frond. There are two British species found on submarine racks. Bryopsi: has two British species, which are also merino planta.
The frond is membmnaceous, filiform, tubular, cylindrical, glistening, branched ; the branches are imbricated, or distichous and pinnated, and filled with a fluid containing minute granules. Their numerous branches give them tho appearance of feathered mosses—hence their name. Batry/iort (from B4rees), a Grape-Bunch, is nothing more than a spherical vesicular receptacle, tilled with a watery fluid : it opens at the apex, and has, descending from the lower part, a bunch of radical fibres. In structure tide plant resemblie Odium, but it is much smaller, the receptacle not being bigger than a grain of mustard, and it grows upon the ground in in mist shady situations. Granules are contained in the watery fluid within the plant, and when the weather is dry, the upper part of the receptacle collapses, giving the plant a cup-shape.