CHARACE^E. 213 



without cortical cells. The description given (Syst. Alg. Introd. p. 

 xxviii.) is, by a typographical error, a repetition of that of 0. colla- 

 bens, as is stated by Agardh himself on the label of a typical specimen 

 in the Kew Herbarium, there being no description of 0. fallax.] 



Rough Chara. 



SPECIES IX.-CHAR A FRAGILIS. Besv. 

 Plates 1920 and 1921. 



Monoecious [or rarely dioecious]. Green, pale pea-green, more rarely 

 greyish-green, from being slightly encrusted with carbonate of lime. 

 Stem slender or very slender, very brittle, usually translucent, faintly 

 spirally-striate, clothed with three times as many cortical cells as 

 there are branchlets in a whorl, smooth, without spine-cells, [or the 

 spine-cells very minute and wart-like or papilliform] ; subterranean 

 part of the stem sometimes producing bulbils at the nodes ; bulbils 

 consisting of an aggregation of cells, forming a subglobular, granu- 

 lated mass. Stipule-cells in 2 whorls, papilliform, generally very 

 minute, but the upper row sometimes conspicuously developed, and 

 even spine-like. Branchlets 6 to 10 in a whorl, generally 7 or 8, 

 short, or sometimes long, often slightly, [rarely (in var. /3) strongly] 

 incurved, slender, tapering, 7- to 13-jointed, their joints clothed with 

 cortical cells, except the minute mucro-like apical cell, which is naked 

 and sometimes also the second from the apex, [rarely all ecorticate]. 

 Bracts mostly developed on the inner side of the branchlet ; those 

 at the fertile nodes usually shorter than the nucules, but not un- 

 frequently 2 to 4 of them equalling or exceeding it, sometimes con- 

 spicuously so ; those at the upper nodes of the branchlet, which do 

 not produce nucules, shorter and often rudimentary, [rarely (in var. 

 (3) all absent or rudimentary]. Nucules in the axils of the bracts, 

 at 2 to 5 of the lowest nodes of the branchlet, narrowly oval- 

 ovoid, deeply 12- to 15-striate, with a long slender erect persistent 

 crown, often abortive, and then shorter and indistinctly striate. 

 Globule solitary, placed immediately below the nucule, [or on a 

 separate plant], 



[Yar. a. genuina. 

 Plate 1920. 



Braun, Babenh. & Stiz. Char. Europ. Exsicc. Nos. 13, 14, 15, 75, 100, 112, 115, 121. 



Nordst. & Wahlst. Char. Scand. Exsicc. Nos. 115a, b, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120. 



Chara fragilis, Besv. in Loisel. Beslong. Notice sur le PI. a ajouter a la Fl. de France, 



