82 Mr.C.C.Babington on the British species of Chara. 
but confidently referred by Professor Agardh, when in the year 
1833 we had the pleasure and advantage of his company in an 
excursion into the fens, to his C. hyalina. Owing to the total 
absence until recently of nucules or globules from the specimens 
obtained, this plant has not, I believe, been published as a native 
species, although very many named samples of it have been dis- 
tributed amongst botanists by Professor Henslow and myself. In 
this paper I have identified it with the C. tenuissima (Desy.), as 
is indeed done by Agardh, although he has preferred the name 
of C. hyalina; and have added to the list the C. polysperma 
(A. Braun), C. syncarpa (Thuil.), C. mucronata (A. Braun), C. 
prolifera (A. Braun), C. Borrert (Bab.), and C. erinita (Wallr.), 
thereby raising the number of our species to sixteen. 
All these species, except two, are preserved in the herbaria of 
Prof. Henslow and myself, and as neither of us has paid any pe- 
culiar attention to this genus, but only collected such specimens 
as came accidentally under our notice, it is highly probable that 
several additions to the list will soon be made, and it is chiefly 
with the view of leading to such discoveries that it is now pub- 
lished. 
In France, according to the list given by Lamotte (Cat. des 
Pl. Vasc. de Europe centrale) in 1847, nineteen species are 
found; in Germany we learn from the same book that there are 
eighteen species. Reichenbach (Fl. Germ. exc. 148 and 843) in 
1833 described sixteen German species ; and Fries (Summa Veg. 
Scand. 60) records fifteen species as natives of Scandinavia, but 
adds the remark, “‘ spec. nondum pl. explor.” 
Since a considerable part of this paper was written, a valuable 
memoir by Prof. A. Braun has appeared in the ‘ Kew Miscellany ’ 
(i. 193), entitled “ Charze australes et antarcticee,” but including 
remarks upon the differences between the supposed genera Chara 
and Nitella, and pointing out new characters for their distinction. 
Notwithstanding the apparent value of these characters, I have 
thought it better to retain the name of Chara for the whole of 
the group until they have been carefully studied in the living 
plants, and their constancy and universality more fully proved. 
They are prefixed to the usual sectional characters in the en- 
suing arrangement of the species, in which I have followed that 
given by Prof. Braun in the above-mentioned memoir. I have 
also largely availed myself of the same distinguished botanist’s 
valuable paper in the ‘ Flora, oder Botanische Zeitung’ of Re- 
gensburg (xvill. 49), and his “‘ Esquisse monographique du genus 
Chara” in the ‘ Annales des Sciences Naturelles’ (ser. 2. 1. 350), 
and have found the account of the species given by Mutel in his 
‘Flore Frangaise’ (iv. 159), and the plates in the ‘ Atlas de la 
Flore de Paris’ by Cosson and Germain, very useful. 
