Marine weed

“ My opinion is that it is a surface plant of old Neptune’s rearing and that the warm water of the Gulf Stream breeds it and nourishes it, for at certain times it seems partly withered, and this could not be due to accident. The weed, I believe, is a sailor, like you and I, my lad, and lives and has its being on the sea, no matter what your longshore naturalists, who don’t know much about it from personal observation, may say to the contrary. ”

“ And now we were within the range of the Sargasso Weed, that mysterious FUCUS that makes the ocean look. like some vast hayfield, and keeps the sea from rising, no matter how high the wind. It fell a dead calm, and the harpooners amused themselves by dredging up great masses of the weed, and turning out the many strange creatures abiding therein. What a world of wonderful life the weed is, to be sure! In it the flying fish spawn and the tiny cuttle-fish breed, both of them preparing bounteous provision for the larger denizens of the deep that have no other food. ”

“ Through the lounge windows I could see long creepers and gigantic fucus plants, bulb-bearing seaweed of which the open sea at the pole had revealed a few specimens; with their smooth, viscous filaments, they measured as much as 300 meters long; genuine cables more than an inch thick and very tough, they’re often used as mooring lines for ships. Another weed, known by the name velp and boasting four-foot leaves, was crammed into the coral concretions and carpeted the ocean floor. It served as both nest and nourishment for myriads of crustaceans and mollusks, for crabs and cuttlefish. ”

“ There are hundreds of miles of seaweed in it and from the name of the weed it gets its title of Sargasso. It is in the north Atlantic, just about off the Gulf of Mexico roughly speaking, though many hundred miles from land. It is shifting all the time though, I understand, and a ship that once gets into it never gets out. The weed just holds her in its grip till she rots. ”

“ It is, like the poor, always with us. But the very weeds we have been so persistently abusing may be brought into our service to overcome it. Watch a mass of floating weed that is about to be carried over the position [42] of your fish, throw your fly so that the gut lies on the advancing weed; the fly, with some inches of free gut, should rest upon the water in front of the weed; the rest of your cast, being supported by the weed, will be freed from the drag of the stream, and the fly will float proudly over the fish. ”

“ Offensive to man afloat and ashore, the “blanket weed” is a luxury to mullet and garfish, for during its period both may be seen in shoals skimming the surface of the sea in abandonment of habitual shyness, and the stomachs of both are found to be full of the greenish-grey slime. With the compliance of the sun the impurity disappears, giving place to the graceful weed of vivid green that attaches itself to dead and whitened shells and fingers of coral covered at low water. Every flood-tide deposits a zone of shells splashed with green, while the shallows glow as a field of rich pasturage. ”

“ Now these gentlemen, who know everything, will have it that the gulf-weed grows deep down at the bottom of the sea and that only the branches and tendrils, or leaves, so to speak, float on the top and are visible to us.”
“How strange, sir,” said I. “Just like an aquarium plant. It is strange!”
“It would be, if true, for they would have to possess uncommonly long stems, as, in the Sagossa Sea, in the centre of the Gulf Stream, where the weed is most plentiful and to be seen at its freshest and most luxuriant growth, the recorded depth of the water is over four miles!” ”

“ Sea-horses use their twisty tails as monkeys do, clinging to the seaweed with them. They swim along slowly, in an upright position. Every now and then they seem to be falling forward on their noses, and pull themselves up again, only to begin falling a moment after. It is fun to see them play hide-and-seek among the weed in an aquarium. Some Sea-horses are like floating scraps of torn weed ”

“ I go in the boat and kill Procellaria capensis, longipes and latirostris. In the course of the day several peices of sea weed are taken up of species very new and one peice of wood coverd with Striated Barnacles Lepas Anserina?
Now do I wish that our freinds in England could by the assistance of some magical spying glass take a peep at our situation: Dr Solander setts at the Cabbin table describing, myself at my Bureau Journalizing, between us hangs a large bunch of sea weed, upon the table lays the wood and barnacles ”

“ From it we gathered that the ship had burst through a very thick mass of the weed which had compacted itself about her, and that the second mate, who was the only officer remaining to them, thought there might be good chance to heave the vessel out; though it would have to be done with great slowness, so as to allow the weed to part gradually, otherwise the ship would but act as a gigantic rake to gather up weed before it, and so form its own barrier to clear water. ”

“ The idea that I had formed was of a close-packed mass of seaweed, through which a ship could no more force her way than she could through an enormous haystack. The real thing is very different. I have never been any closer to the middle than I was that day in the Clearchus, and so I do not know, from the evidence of my own senses, how closely packed the weed may be ”

“ We think of weeds as useless plants which insist on growing just where they are not wanted. So it is a pity that Sea-weeds are so named, for the part they play in the sea is a useful one; and they are often beautiful, though they do not bear flowers like so many plants of the land. You see draggled heaps of them, lying on the shore where the waves have thrown them. They are best seen in their proper home, buoyed up by the water, and spreading out their broad coloured fronds, or long waving threads. There are, in many places, meadows of Sea-grass, and forests of Sea-weed! ”

“ As the plants are detached they are placed one by one in security. The finer and more delicate ones, as the Delesseria for instance, are immediately dropped into a jar of water; for only a few minutes' exposure of their lovely crimson fronds to the air, would turn them to that dull orange colour, already mentioned as the sign of incipient decay. The hardier sorts are laid in the basket,—a layer of damp refuse-weed being first put in to receive them,—and covered lightly with damp weed. The degree of moisture thus secured is sufficient to preserve many species from injury, for hours. ”

“ Where hand labor is employed, it is far less expensive and much easier to keep weeds down by raking or hoeing once a week than by going over the ground much less frequently.
The habits of a weed determine to a great extent the best mode of fighting it. Certain remedies suggest themselves for creeping perennials, like quack grass and toad flax, while different treatment is best for narrow-leaved dock; and still a different mode of attack may be adopted for crab grass and purslane. ”

“ On all rocky coasts several varieties of this family of sea-weeds are to be met with. When trodden on, the air-vessels explode with a sharp report; from this fact it has been christened, by young people living on the coast, the snap-weed, to whom it affords much amusement. On this coarse weed, and under its dark and damp masses, in the tide pools and on the rocks on which it grows, are to be found many varieties of our most delicate and beautiful sea-weeds. ”

“ A ship would probably have no great trouble in going through what looked like a solid mass of floating weed, each separate plant giving to her passage with but little more resistance than the water.
Peter got a bucketful of water, with a plant bearing its strange freight of life: crabs, sea-horses, pipe-fish, shrimp, and slugs.
“Aye, Timmie,” he said as he dropped the bucket over the side, “it ’s sargasso, and that means seaweed in some outlandish lingo. Why they can’t say seaweed when they mean seaweed is beyond me. ”

“ Often you may find little plants growing on the bigger ones; sometimes a well-established weed may be almost covered by small seaweeds of many kinds, brown, green, or red. These attach themselves to the big plant in much the same way as they would to a rock, but only use it as a place of anchorage, and do not tap its food supply, as the parasitic mistletoe does to the land-plants. In the same way you may find numbers of seaweeds planted on shells or growing on the backs of crabs. ”

“ Let your weeds stand quietly in the vase a day or two before you put in any live animals; and even then, do not put any in if the water does not appear perfectly clear: but lift out the weeds, and renew the water ere you replace them.
This is Mr. Gosse’s method. But Mr. Lloyd, in his “Handbook to the Crystal Palace Aquarium,” advises that no weed should be put into the tank. “It is better,” he says, “to depend only on those which gradually and naturally appear on the rocks of the aquarium by the action of light, and which answer every chemical purpose.” ”

“ It must be understood that the weeds are to serve two distinct purposes:—They are to supply at least some of the oxygen required for the respiration of the animal inmates, and also to serve as food for them. Some marine fishes and molluscs feed on the fronds of the weeds, and among these the common periwinkle may be mentioned as one of the most voracious. If many such animals are housed in the aquarium, it will be necessary to replace at intervals those species of weeds that suffer most from their ravages. ”

“ It is an olive, shrub-like weed, with a conical, disc-like root that adheres very firmly to the rock, and a pinnately-branched frond with leaf-like branchlets. The air-vesicles are cylindrical and pod-like, divided internally into about ten cells, and the spores are contained in globular receptacles at the tips of the branchlets.
The young algologist will probably meet with many difficulties in his attempts to classify his sea weeds and name the various species in his collection. In dealing with an unknown weed we strongly recommend him to first determine the order to which it belongs. ”

“ This animal lives among the sea weed, feeding upon the weed as well as upon mollusks and other animals. It discharges a violet liquid when handled which caused the ancients to believe that it was poisonous. The old Greek philosophers wrote a great deal on this subject, believing that to even touch the animal with a stick would cause death. Though repulsive looking creatures they are perfectly harmless and are even eaten raw by the natives of the Friendly and the Society Islands. ”

“ Occasionally a good ship would get becalmed in the middle of the pool, in which case its owner would have to wade to the rescue, probably finding it caught in a mass of oar-weed, or even entangled in the floating tentacles of a huge jelly-fish. The children had made a nice aquarium not far from the hut, and in this they put specimens of every different kind of sea-weed on the island, as well as crabs, anemones, limpets, sea cucumbers, star-fishes, zoophytes, or any other treasures of the deep that they might be lucky enough to collect ”

“ I told Ned Land and Conseil that provident nature had assigned an important r{ôle to these mammalia. Indeed, they, like the seals, are designed to graze on the submarine prairies, and thus destroy the accumulation of weed that obstructs the tropical rivers.
"And do you know," I added, "what has been the result since men have almost entirely annihilated this useful race? That the putrified weeds have poisoned the air, and the poisoned air causes the yellow fever, that desolates these beautiful countries. ”

“ There are several different species of this sea-weed, all attaining great size. The stems, when washed on shore, bear such an exact resemblance to dead wood as quite to deceive the eye: no arguments of mine could dissuade the captain of a merchant brig, with whom I visited a portion of the Falkland Islands, from taking several boat-loads on board his vessel: he was perfectly convinced that this sea-weed would afford, when dried, excellent fuel. A better use is made of it by the Guachos, who shape pieces of the stem into knife-handles ”

“ Every individual attends to his or her own washing—if the husband wants a clean shirt, he washes it himself.
Before the introduction of the potato through early white fur-traders, the only plant cultivated by the Alaskan savages was a potent weed which they grew as a substitute for tobacco—the importation of the latter, however, has taken its place entirely to-day, because the Virginian weed is far more pleasant. But the old stone mortars and pestles that are still to be found knocking around the most venerable town-sites, bear evidence to the industry of making native tobacco here ages ago. ”

“ The Surf as it rolls in, higher than it ever does at Madras, is broken and quite put down before it gets half way through the belt of seaweed. When the weed is not continuous to the shore a second Surf forms in the clear water (as it would do after passing through an artificial floating breakwater) , lower than at first, but still heavy. I have rowed a crazy boat amongst such seaweed with impunity, whereas had no weed existed, not even a Massoola boat could have Used, yet the Surf was disarmed of its danger by floating filaments of seaweed! ”

“ The adaptation of the innumerable tints to every grade of change in the color of the sea-weed is really marvelous. The younger, lighter green crustaceans are always to be found on the young, verdant fronds of the plant, while the older parts of the weed are inhabited by older, brown animals. The older stems are often incrusted with the white shells of bryozoa, and corresponding with these we are sure to find white spots on the brown armor of the crabs. ”