Seaweed from Charles F. Durant’s Algae and Corallines of the Bay & Harbor of New York (1850). Left, clockwise from top: Callithamnion spongiosum and two specimens of Ulva latissima; Right, clockwise from top right: Polysiphonia nigrescens, Callithamnion cruciatum, Cladophora refracta, and Porphyra vulgaris.
Featured on PDR in the essay Love and Longing in the Seaweed Album
Combing across 19th-century shores, seaweed collectors would wander for hours, tucking specimens into pouches and jars, before pasting their finds into artful albums. Sasha Archibald explores the eros contained in the pressed and illustrated pages of notable algologists, including “the most ambitious album of all” by Charles F. Durant.