12G THE .TOritXAL OF BOTAXY 



not therefore the importance which it would have appeared to possess 

 if we had only the typical Australian plant with which to compare it. 

 I take this opportunity to refer to the generic position of this 

 plant, and of the other species which have been placed under Lyclino- 

 thamnus. That genus was first established as such by Leonhardi, in 

 Lotos, xiii. p. 72 (1863), having previously been differentiated in 

 1845 by Ruprecht (Symb. ad hist, et geogr. pi. Eoss. pp. 79, 80, and 

 Distr. Crypt. Vase. Imp. Ross. p. 11) as a subgenus, to include the 

 species in Braun's section *' Charte pleurogynae," viz. O. harhata, 

 C. impulosa (under two of its synonyms C. Wallrothii and C. Poii- 

 zohii), and C. macropogon. In Braun's papers from 1849 onwards 

 the name Lychnofhammis was adopted as a subgenus. In the con- 

 spectus to Die Characeen Afrilio's, hoAvever, Braun, though still 

 keeping it as a subgenus, preceded the specific names with an " X." 

 instead of a *' C." In Braun and Nordstedt's Fragmente einer 

 Monoqrapliie der Characeen (1882) the genus was recognised as 

 distinct, but important changes were made in its constitution. Char a 

 jiapalosa (under another of its s^-nonyras, C. alopecuroides) was 

 removed into a new genus, Lamiirothamniis^ and Chara stelligera 

 ( = C. ohfusa, De^viiwx) was added to Lychnothamnus, so that the 

 latter genus consisted of three curiously unlike j^lants, L. stelligery 

 L. macropogon, and X. harhatns. 



The distinctive character of Lychnothamnus is that the antheridia 

 are produced by the side of the oogonia, and as shown in the dia- 

 grammatic figures of X. harhatns, nos. 191-4, t. vi. of the Fragmente, 

 they proceed from separate peripheral cells of the branchlet node, 

 whereas in Lamprotliamnium { = Lamprothamnns Braun, non Hiern) 

 and Chara both sexual organs arise from the same peripheral cell, in 

 the former genus the antheridium being situated above (or occasionally 

 beside the oogonium, and in the latter below it. Now it happens 

 that of the three species placed under Lychnothamnus in the Frag- 

 mente, it is only in the one, L. harhatus, that the relative position of 

 the sexual organs can be satisfactorily ascertained, since L. stelliger 

 is di(ecious, and in L. macropogon, while the antheridia are normally 

 produced at the free nodes of the branchlets and occasionally some- 

 wliat irregularly at their base, the oogonia are usually produced only at 

 the basal-nodes in the axils of the branchlets, and when occasionally 

 also at a free branchlet-node scarcely ever at one where there is an 

 antheridimn. I will refer later to instances in which to ni}^ knowledge 

 they have been found together. 



*In 1889 Professor Hy (in Bull. Soc. Bot. France, xxxvi. p. 398 

 (1889) constituted a separate genus, Nitell apsis f or X. stelliger, and 

 this separation was concurred in by Dr. Migula, who, however, gave 

 it a fresh generic name, Tolypellopsis. Though the distinctive 

 characters relied upon by these authors are purely vegetative ones, 

 the genus appears to me to be a natural one. It is, however, perha]is 

 a case where " knowledge falls short of conviction " ! The simple 

 structure of the plant as compared with other Charece, seems to mark 

 it out as belonging to an archiac type, and the fruits more than those 

 of any other living species approximate in shaj^e and size to the big 



