CHARACE^E. 205 



form from Coventry Park, Warwick, collected by Mr. T. Kirk in 1856. 

 [The Kew Herbarium also contains a specimen labelled * Ireland, 

 D. Moore.' The plant collected by Mr. G. Nicholson at Thornton-le- 

 Street, near Thirsk, Yorkshire, is stated by Messrs. Groves in Journ. 

 Bot. 1881, p. 356 to be var. crassicaulis, it is, however, not that plant, 

 but the form subhispida, (which Braun first described as a variety, 

 afterwards as a species,) having very prominent secondary cortical 

 cells and numerous spine-cells. The var. crassicaulis has all the 

 cortical cells nearly equally prominent, no spine-cells, or only very 

 minute ones, and short incurved stoutish branchlets, with their 

 terminal uncorticated joints much stouter than usual, and in the dried 

 state apparently inflated.] The figure they give of this plant in the 

 ' Journal of Botany,' however, appears to have much more tapering 

 branches than the specimens given in No. 69 of Braun, Rabenh. 

 and Stiz. Char. Eur., and No. 97 of Wahlstedt and Nordstedt, Char. 

 Scand. [This number (97) in the Kew set is not var. crassicaulis 

 at all, but the form subhispida, = C. collabens, Ag. !] 



[A form in which the nucleus of the ripe nucules is black instead of 

 brown (var. melanopyrena,A. Braun), is stated by Messrs. Groves to have 

 been collected near Bridgerule, Cornwall, by Mr. W. Rogers in 1883. 



Yar. contraria is usually smaller, more rigid, and has shorter and 

 more incurved branchlets than most of the forms of var. a, but exhibits 

 much the same general range of variation, and some forms are only to 

 be distinguished from the type, by the greater prominence of the 

 primary cortical cells, i.e., those which correspond to the middle of 

 the base of the branchlets, and upon which the spine-cells are placed, 

 which is the chief and only reliable character ; as in all the forms of 

 var. a they are less prominent than the secondary ones. C. jubata, 

 Braun (C. contraria var. jubata, Miiller), which appears to be only a 

 deep-water state of the var. contraria, and only differs from it by its 

 longer stems with very distant whorls of exceedingly short branchlets 

 which are sometimes reduced to mere papillae ^ to ^ of a line long, 

 sometimes 1 to 3 lines long, may perhaps be found in some of our lakes.] 



Generally speaking, C. foetida is more or less whitish from being 

 encrusted with carbonate of lime, but dark bright green forms, [C. 

 atrovirens^] without encrustation occasionally occur. [The variety or 

 state, gymnophylla, A. Braun, in which the branchlets are uncorticated 

 is not unlikely to occur, and should be searched for.] Messrs. Groves, 

 in their excellent paper on British Characese in the ' Journal of 

 Botany,' have reverted to the name vulgaris for this species, but 

 although the name fcetida has been used with different degrees of 

 latitude by Braun himself, it is generally accepted subject to different 

 opinions as to species and varieties. At any rate, the name vulgaris 

 is untenable as dating back to Linngeus, who under it included forms 

 now universally considered distinct. C. foetida possesses in a special 

 degree an unpleasant odour. 



Fetid Chara. 



