HISTORICAL. 



THE botanical history of the Characeae is marked by numerous 

 changes in classification, which have varied with the notions of differ- 

 ent botanists concerning the place of these plants in the vegetable 

 kingdom. Vaillant first separated them from Hippuris and Equise- 

 tum (Hist, de 1'Acad. Royal, d. sc. 1719), and collected nine species 

 under the name Chara (xapa. ) This name had been used prior to 

 this time by Hevel (Prodr. Astron.) for a constellation, and it is possi- 

 ble that the appearance in water of the whorled leaves of one of these 

 plants may have suggested the name of a star for them. 



Linnaeus at first classed them with the Crypto-gamia, with Lemna, 

 between Marsilea and Fucus, among the Algae. 



Following Linnaeus, most of the older authors adopted this 

 classification. B. Jussieu placed them between Conferva and 

 Spongia. 



Schreber (in his Genera] recognized the globular bodies which he 

 noticed in the axils of the leaves as male and female organs ; the 

 round red globules he called Antheridia; the larger oval bodies, spir- 

 ally wound, with a toothed crown, were called female flowers ; the 

 teeth were considered stigmata, and the nucule the seed. These two 

 bodies found on the same plant, near each other, though the so-called 

 Antheridia lacked the essential characters of Anthers, seemed to 

 Schreber to determine the position of these organisms among flowering 

 plants as Monandria monogynia. 



Linnaeus adopted this view, and in the later editions of his works we 

 find them classified according to Schreber's notions, Moncccia monau- 

 dra; many pupils and authors following Linnaeus retained this classi- 

 fication (for example, Nuttall], which, indeed, has held, until very re- 

 cent times (Bertolini Flor. Italica, Willdenord Flor. Berol.). Baumgar- 

 ten placed them among the Mo?idria digynia, and Pursh, on account of 

 the so-called five stigmata, Polygynia. 



Louis Claude Richard, in Humb. et Boupl. nov. gen. 1815, fifet em- 

 ployed the family name, Characece, and following him Kunth, Wallroth 

 (1815), Martius, etc., restored them to the Cryptogams; Kunth placing 

 them between Marsiliaceae and Piperaceae ; Wallroth, near Conferva. 



The investigations of Vaucher (Mem. de la Soc. Phys. de Geneve, 

 1821), and of Kaulfuss (Ueber das Keinren von Chara, 1825), led to a 

 more definite knowledge of the character of the fruit, which has been 



