smaller tubes ; so that each branchlet is apiculate. The
bracteas have no external tubes and are tipped with a pellucid
point. The globules are very small and fall off before
the nucules, which in age become quite dark. In old
plants occasionally one or two of the bracteas are slightly
longer than the nucules. Gathered at Sandwich July 9th,
1832.
Chara Hedwigii is a much neater and more delicate plant
than Chara vulgaris, of which the figure in Engl. Bot. t. 336.
is very faithful. The specific difference consists in the different
length of the bracteas compared with the nucule,—
in the present plant the bracteas scarcely exceeding the
nucule, in Chara vulgaris being at least three times as
long. But there is besides this another very curious distinction
;—all the articulations of the branchlets in Chara
Hedwigii, which are at least eight in number, have a coating
of spiral tubes ; whereas in Chara vulgaris, where the
articulations are from four to six, [those above the fruitbearing
joints consist of a simple tube only, as is very correctly
represented at plate 5, Jig. 32, of Trans. Soc. Arts,
vol. 48, and have no bracteas. Both have evident transverse
partitions, though in Chara vulgaris the branchlets are described
as inarticulate *.
As much interest has been excited both as to the fructification
and the curious phenomena presented by the
circulation in Characece, I beg leave to subjoin a few remarks
in reference to the former subject, which, though
they have no pretensions to novelty, still, as the observations
on which they are grounded were made almost
* There is another published species from which it is more difficult to
distinguish it, the Charapulchella of Wallroth. In the absence of authentic
specimens, it is very difficult to come to any satisfactory conclusion;
but as he quotes the figure of Hedwig under Chara vulgaris, the first impression
would be that his species is distinct. Mr. Borrer has very
kindly communicated to me specimens, and some very valuable observations,
with a view to a correct adjustment of the claims of Charai
Hedwigii and Chara pulchella. And as one of his specimens, received by
Mr. Sowerby from W. C. Trevelyan, Esq., gathered in streams at the head
of Teesdale, exactly agrees with mine, though not in fruit,—and another
from Totteridge Green, gathered in August, 1827, by Mr. Milne, answers
to the description and figure of Wallroth, I think it will be better to retain
both species, till a figure from fresh specimens from the latter locality
be published, which may, perhaps, completely settle the point. Mr.
Milne’s plant is much more pellucid ; very few of the upper articulations
bracteated; the globules much more evanescent, and the nucules of a
longer figure.
independently, may perhaps tend to confirm those which
are already recorded.
In the Systerna Algarum, Agardh has divided the Linnean
genus Chara into two genera. Those species which have
the tubes with striated walls and the two forms of fructification
on the same individual, he retains in the genus
Chara ; the species with simple tubes, and the two organs
on different individuals and without bracteas, he includes in
his genus Nitella. Of these characters one must be given
up, as the Chara figured at t. 2738 of the present Work,
which has striated walls, bears the nucules and globules on
different plants ; while Nitella translucens is represented in
Engl. Bot. as bearing the two on the same plant, and Mr.
Borrer finds this to be the case in N. gracilis and in some
specimens of N. jlexilis and N. nidifica : and probably
the accessory character of the genus Nitella, that it is
destitute of bracteas, will be found equally untenable. Indeed,
Mr. Borrer considers N. nidifica as furnished with
bracteas*.
* " Part of a description of Chara nidifica, made from specimens found
in a marsh-ditch at Henfield, July 4, 1827 :—
“ Whorled ramuli patent or reflexed, the lower ones two or three inches
long, the upper gradually shorter ; all contracted suddenly just below the
minute acute apex : those at the upper knots of the primary and all of those
on the secondary branches producing, at a short distance from their base,
one, two, or more, frequently many, sessile nucules, accompanied usually
by a smaller number of globules ; and these are sometimes sessile also,
but often raised on a short pedicel varying somewhat in length. The
ramulus is usually bent a little upwards at this point. The fructification
is subtended by four slender bracteas, of varying and often considerable
length ; three of them placed on the under-side of the ramulus and at
right angles with it, the fourth lateral, and usually pointing upwards.
This last often, and one of the others sometimes, has near its base another
smaller cluster of fructification, supported in like manner by a
secondary set of bracteas. Not unfrequently'also another cluster of fructification,
with its attendant bracteas, is produced on the main ramulus,
a line or two above the cluster nearest to its base. [This description was
taken from the larger fructiferous ramuli : whether the conformation of
the smaller ones is the same, the crowded mode of their growth prevented
me from ascertaining.] Nucule ovato-globose, with a minute point, possibly
a stigma, but I am more inclined to think it composed of the concrete
points [I find them 5 in C. Jlexilis,'] of the integument of the nucule,
which forms a transparent spirally striated limbus about the pale, afterwards
yellow, and at length dark brown, nucleus.
“ The tube of the main thread (or stem) and of its branches is continuous
; that of the ramuli and of the bracteas has a few contractions towards
their apex, with, I believe, a real internal dissepiment at each.
“ Such was my Henfield plant, and I believe that found at Cley in 1806
(see Engl. Bot.) was precisely the same, except its shorter growth. The
ditch at Henfield is about seven miles from the sea in a straight line, much