C H A R A nidifica.
Proliferous Chara.
MONANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. Char. Cal. none. Cor. none. Anthera tessellated.
Style none. Berry with many seeds.
Spec. Char. Smooth, transparent, without prickles.
Leaves cylindrical, elongated, all simple. Anthera
often stalked.
Syn. Conferva nidifica. FI. Dan. t. 761.
D IS C O V E R E D at Shoreham harbour, Sussex, by Mr.
W . Borrer in the autumn of 1805, and by the same indefatigable
and intelligent botanist at Cley, Norfolk, in October
1806. W e are obliged to him for distinguishing it from
Chara flexilis, and for suggesting that the synonym of Flora
Danica, quoted in FI. Brit, and our v. 15. t. 1070 for the
latter, more properly belongs to this new species.
The whole plant is of a stouter and firmer habit than C%.
flexilis, as well as of a more divaricated mode of growth. The
leaves differ materially in being twice or thrice as long as in
that species, and yet always simple and undivided. The
small branches which surround the primary ones, and bear
fructification, all spread at right angles from them, and
are frequently compound or whorled in their - upper part,
giving the plant a dense and bushy aspect. Three or four
small simple branches, or leaflets, accompany each flower,
which consists of an anthera standing on a footstalk (various
in length and occasionally wanting), and sometimes of a sessile
germen adjoining. In the earlier specimens from Shoreham,
whose antheras were most generally stalked, no germens
could be found; in those from Cley the anthera was for the
most part sessile.