The New International Encyclopædia/Dulse

DULSE (Gael, duileasg, dulse, from duille, leaf + uisge, water), Rhodymenia palmata. An edible seaweed, one of the Ceramiaceæ, which grows on rocky marine coasts. It is used as an article of food by poor people on the coasts of the British Isles, and other northern countries, and occasionally also as a luxury by some of the wealthier classes who have acquired a taste for it. It has a purple, leathery or somewhat membranous, veinless, sessile leaf, irregularly cut, with repeatedly forked segments, which are either entire at the edges, or furnished with lateral leaflets. The spores are distributed in cloud-like spots over the whole leaf. The name dulse is also given in the southwest of England to another seaweed, Iridæa edulis, also one of the Ceramiaceæ, which has an undivided, obovate or wedge-shaped, expanded, very succulent leaf, of a dull purple color. It is occasionally employed as food both in the southwest of England and in Scotland. Laurentia pinnatifida, another of the Ceramiaceæ, has a compressed cartilaginous twice or thrice pinnatifid leaf. It has a pungent taste, and is used as a condiment when other seaweeds are eaten. In Alaska the name dulse is given to the seaweed Porphyra laciniata. It is gathered, pressed into cakes, and dried. When desired for use it is broken or shaved into hot water and cooked for half an hour, when a nourishing porridge is obtained. Similar uses of this and related plants are reported from Japan, China, and elsewhere along the Pacific coasts.