Advances in the study of benthic marine algae since the time of E. M. Holmes

E. M. Holmes's major interests in the marine benthic algae were, like those of most of his contemporaries, taxonomic and floristic; he was much occupied with the acquisition, for areas of the British Isles, of new records of species known already elsewhere. Records established by Holmes and his contemporaries have increasingly been subjected to examination by means of more recent laboratory and field techniques. Data thus gathered continue to reveal connections between taxa hitherto considered distinct; it is mainly this revealed capacity for structural and reproductive variation, at many levels, in the benthic marine algae that has led to amendment by posterity of earlier taxonomic opinions. Even in the areas widi a long tradition of benthic marine phycological study, there remains much to be understood; apart from the need for more workers and for yet more sophisticated research techniques, the biotic situation is itself dynamic. Nevertheless, the importance of the ground work achieved and herbaria assembled by Holmes and his contemporaries (especially Batters) cannot be denied.