 Amber Necklace |
 Gin Glass |
 Neck Ornament |
 Irish Lady's Tresses Orchid |
 The Lennox Quilt |
 Fossil Crinoids |
 Madonna and Child |
 A Red Alga |
 Irish Wolfhound |
 Coates Family Photograph |
 Chinese Ivory Puzzle Ball |
 Early Medieval Tomb-shaped Shrine |
 The Green Coat, Sir John Lavery |
 Juvenile Bald Eagle |
A Red Alga Lithothamnion glaciale Kjellman,
Donation,
Accession number: F4253,
Length: 160 mm; Breadth: 70 mm; Depth: 160 mm
The coralline algae comprise encrusting seaweeds that are almost entirely calcified and hard in texture. They often go unrecognised as seaweeds by the non-botanist and are consequently under-recorded. Although such algae are common enough, in many cases they are difficult to identify. Lithothamnion glaciale is, however, easy to recognise as its knobbly appearance is distinctive. Thin and flat to begin with, it grows to become 4 mm thick. It has a smooth surface and cylindrical branches up to 15 mm long. It has a northerly distribution, being found in the north of Ireland, Scotland, north of England, the Isle of Man and Wales.
Lithothamnion glaciale has been recorded from France, the Baltic, Iceland, Greenland, eastern North America, Japan and China.
Comment:
Osborne Morton, retired Curator of Botany
When I joined the staff in 1975, the Ulster Museum had a small but valuable collection of algae. However, many species - even some relatively common ones - were not represented in the Museum's herbarium. A nationwide initiative to map the distribution of algae around the British Isles had just begun and, by taking part in it, I added not only to our knowledge of the distribution of different species in Northern Ireland but also to the Museum's herbarium. Furthermore, it enabled me to have the identity of certain tricky species confirmed by specialists.
