194 ENGLISH" BOTANY. 



Monoecious. Dark green or olive. Stem slender, translucent, 

 without cortical cells or spine-cells, but with very long retrorse spine- 

 like stipule-cells, in one whorl, lower portion often with small one-celled 

 bulbils. Branchlets 6 to 9 in a whorl, 3- to 5-jointed, the 2 or 3 

 lower joints nearly equal, and as thick as the stem, the terminal one 

 much smaller and spine-like. Bracts 6 to 8 in a whorl, at all the nodes 

 of the branchlets except the last one, spreading, spine-like, mostly all 

 larger than the nucules. Nucules solitary at the lower nodes of the 

 branches in the axils of the bracts, oval-ovoid, 10- to 12-striate, with 

 a minute persistent subentire crown. Globules solitary on the inner 

 side of the fertile branches, between the bracts alongside of the nucule. 



In brackish water, very rare. Abundant in the shallow water of 

 the brine pans on the west mouth of New Town, Isle of Wight, first 

 found by Mr. A. G. More in August, 1862, and again in 1863, in the 

 pits or reservoirs on the east side of the creek close to the village of 

 New Town, growing in salt water 18 inches to 2 feet deep, [also 

 found there in July 1881 by Mr. Charles Bailey]. Journ. Bot. 1863, 

 p. 193 ; 1871, p. 207; [and 1881, p. 356]. 



England. Perennial. Summer. 



A small plant, 3 to 6 inches long, the stems scarcely so thick as 

 a darning-needle, with branchlets \ to § inch long, the lowest ones 

 generally unicellular, and without stipule-cells, which are present at 

 the base of all the fertile whorls, and are sometimes nearly as long as 

 the first joint of the branchlet. This first joint is generally about as 

 long as the succeeding one, but sometimes only half as long. 



The spine-like bracts and stipule-cells give this plant a very bristly 

 appearance, which, together with the uncorticated cells readily dis- 

 tinguish it from all the British Charae. Messrs. Groves say that the Isle 

 of Wight specimens appear to be nearer the var. Montagnei of Braun, 

 which I have not seen, but they appear to me not to differ from the 

 Baltic variety Wallrothii in Nordstedt et Wahlstedt, ' Characege Scan- 

 dinavian Exsiccatse,' No. 21 B. The number 21 of the same set, and 

 No. 81 of Braun, Rabenhorst and Stizenberger's published set, has 

 more slender branches and longer stipule-cells and bracts than in any 

 of the Isle of Wight specimens I have seen. [Between Delile's type 

 of C. alopecuroidea, and the so-called varieties Montagnei (Montagne's 

 specimens !), and Wallrothii, as named by Braun in the Kew Herba- 

 rium, and the Isle of Wight plant, I fail to find any distinction, beyond 

 degree of incrustation ; and Gay's type of C. Pouzolsii only differs in 

 its longer and more slender bract-cells and stipulodes. — N. E. B.] 



Foxtail Chara. 



