193 
ON CHARA ALOPECUROIDES, Del, AS A NATIVE OF 
BRITAIN. 
Bv C. C. Basineton, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S. 
(Prats VIL.) 
Unfortunately, a return of illness prevents my friend Mr. A. G. More 
from giving an account of his own most interesting discovery of Chara 
alopecuroides, Delile, in the Isle of Wight. Under these unhappy cir- 
cumstances, he has requested me to draw up a short notice of the plant 
to accompany Mr. Fitch’s drawing, the first ever published. Through 
Mr. More's liberality, I possess one of the very few specimens which he 
gathered. Another of them was sent to M. J. Gay, of Paris, who, 
many years since, gave it the manuscript name of C. Pouzolzii, in ho- 
nour of M. Pouzolz, who discovered it in Corsica. It was found on 
July 10, 1842, at Perols, near Montpellier, by Dr. Wunderly, a pupil 
of the celebrated Dr. Alex. Braun, as we learn from parts of the ori- 
ginal specimen most liberally sent to Mr. More by M. J. Gay. Mr. 
More found it “ growing abundantly in the shallow water of the brine 
pans at Newtown, in the Isle of Wight," in August, 1862. 
The plant seems, at the first view, to be a Nitella; but no true 
Nitella has involucral spines (and they are of great size in the present 
species), whilst all proper Chare possess them at the base of the whorls. 
Also, the fruiting branchlets are forked (usually with 2 or 3 prongs) 
in Nitella ; but in Chara they are simple with bracts at their joinings 
(nodes). By attending to these characters, there can never be any 
difficulty in deciding that such naked single-tubed plants as the pre- 
sent are Chare rather than Nitelle. think also that the crown of 
the nucule of this species agrees with A. Braun’s character of Chara, 
derived from its consisting of one whorl of 5 persistent cells; but of 
two whorls, each of 5 cells, the one superimposed upon the other, and the 
whole deciduous in Nitella. 
This species is very closely allied to C. barbata, Meyen, but they seem 
to be quite distinct. C. alopecuroides is known from C. barbata by the 
basal joint (internode) of each of its branchlets being shorter, or at the 
utmost not more than equal in length to the second joint. C. barbata 
has an exceedingly long basal joint. Our plant also differs greatly in 
appearance from C. barbata, and might easily be taken, at the first 
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