This plant belongeth to those called wier by the Dutchmen, and fucus in Latin.

It has a broad flat stalk like a leaf, and yet there sprout out of it many equally broad leaves like it, as twiggs out of a tree ; at the top of the stalks there are little narrow longish leaves, some have five, others seven of these, of a yellow colour, as the herb is also, and they are transparent like glew ; I know not whether one may take them for its flowers. Close to these grow other oblong leaves, that are hollow, and as it was blown up and fill'd with wind, and many lesser bladders round about close to one another. The leaves that are blown up have nothing in them but wind, for when I pressed them together they gave a little bounce; whether these small bladders have seeds in them or no I could not observe.

The seamen informed me, that from the seeds of that plant the small sea-snails are produced; but I am not satisfied whether they proceed from these bladders or from eggs, as our snails do.