CHARACEX FROM THE WEST INDIES. 323 
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On Charace: collected by Mr T. B. Blow, F.T.S., in the West 
Indes. By Henry Groves, F.L.S., and James Groves, F.L.S. 
(Prate 19.) 
[Read 16th December, 1897.] 
Ix the winter of 1894-5 Mr. Blow visited British Guiana and 
some of the southern West Indian Islands, and took every 
opportunity of searching for Characez. He examined many of 
the canals and swamps of Demerara, and went up the Essequibo 
River as far as the Gold Diggings, but failed to find any Characee. 
He was also unsuccessful in the islands of Grenada, St. Lucia, 
Martinique, Montserrat, and St. Kitt’s, the only islands in which 
he was able to collect any being Antigua and Trinidad. So little 
is known of the Chara flora of the smaller West Indian Islands 
that it seems desirable to place these few notes on record, 
especially as one of the plants appears to us sufficiently distinct 
to rank as a species. 
l. Cmama zeytanica, Willd., var. INCONSTANS.—C. incon- 
sans, Kuetz. Tub. Phyc. vol. vii. (1857) p. 28, t. 70. fig. 2.— 
C. gymnopus, var. inconstans, Braun, Fragm. Mon. Char. (1882) 
p. 198. 
Ina elay pond, San Fernando, Trinidad, 2nd January, 1895. 
is seems to be exaetly the plant referred to by Braun as 
having been collected by Crueger in the same island. It is cha- 
tacterized by the lowest segment of the branchlets being as long, 
or almost as long, as the second, and the corticate segments being 
0-3 only, 
C. zeylanica is a widely distributed and extremely variable 
Species, occurring in Asia, Africa, North and South America, 
and Australia, and itis one of the commonest species in the 
topics, Most botanists have followed Braun in adopting the 
lame of Q, gymnopus, Braun, but this name is clearly untenable. 
C zeylanica was described and fi gured by Willdenow (Mém. Acad. 
1 Berl. 1803, p. 86, t. 2) in 1805, and there has never been any 
oubt as to the identity of the species referred to. C. foliolosa, a 
orth-American form of the same species, was described at the 
‘ame time. These names were followed by C. compressa, Kunth 
LINN, JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XXXIII. 2c 
