between the Gulf-weed and some other Sargassa, especially S. natans, are not such as to prove these two species to be permanently distinct. The most remarkable of these differences consists in the leaves of the Gulf-weed being uniformly destitute of those dots or areolæ so common in the genus Sargassum, and which are constantly present in S. natans. These dots, in their greatest degree of development, bear a striking resemblance to the perforations or apertures of the imbedded fructification in the genus. But as the receptacles of the fructification, as well as the vesicles, are manifestly metamorphosed leaves; and as the production of fructification is not adapted to the circumstances in which the Gulf-weed is placed, it is not wholly improbable, though this must be regarded as mere hypothesis, that the propagation by lateral branches, continued for ages, may be attended with the entire suppression of these dots.
"That the Gulf-weed of the great band is propagated 80] solely by lateral or axillary ramification, and that in this way it may have extended over the immense space it now occupies, is highly probable, and perhaps may be affirmed absolutely without involving the question of origin, which I consider as still doubtful.
"My conclusion, therefore, is somewhat different from that of Baron Humboldt, to whom I would beg of you to forward these observations, which will prove that I have not been inattentive to his wishes and to your own, though they will at the same time prove that I have had very little original information to communicate."
