12 LONDON BOTANICAL EXCHANGE CLUB. 
and a specimen of B. serotinus is in Wirtgen’s ‘ Fasciculus of Critical 
Plants ;’ but the characters are of very slight value, and, looking over 
our specimens, we do not find that the form subglabrous upwards 
has invariably the larger number of branches. Specimens gathered 
near Thirsk, North-east Yorkshire, by Mr. Baker, belong also to B. 
serotinus. ; 
Lastrea Thelypteris, Presl. In one spot, close by the side of the 
Basingstoke canal, between Frimley Green and Pirbright, Surrey ; 
a: son. The rhizomes float in the water of the canal. 
Chara flexilis, L. We wish to invite the attention of our members 
to the question of the distribution in this country of C. flexilis and 
C. syncarpa. The two species agree almost precisely in general habit, 
but the former is monecious, and the latter diccious. We believe it 
will be found, contrary to what seems to be the ordinary idea, that 
C. syncarpa is a common plant and C. flexilis quite a rare one. 
British Tolypelle—The British Characee, of the section Tolypella, 
need revising as regards their arrangement and nomenclature. In the 
first place, Dr. Alexander Braun, whose long-continued studies of the 
Order render his dicta of the highest authority upon all points con- 
nected with it, identifies the Chara Borreri, of Babington, with a plant 
(Chara prolifera, Ziz.) which both he and Kiitzing regard as a robust 
variety of the plant called by Babington C. polysperma. In corrobo- 
ration of this identification, he sends specimens from Basle which mani- 
festly coincide with Borrer’s own specimens of the plant on which 
C. Borreri was founded. For C. polysperma, it now appears (see 
Braun and Rabenhorst’s ‘ Fasciculus of Dried Specimens of the Euro- 
pean Characee,’ n. 18) there are two names of earlier date, viz. C. in- 
tricata, Roth (Catal. Fase, i. 125), which goes back to 1797, and 
C. fasciculata, Amici (Descr. p. 16), imposed in 1827, From the 
other species of the group this is distinguished by its larger size and 
. branchlets, with more or less distinctly pointed tips. Dr. Braun 
identifies the plant called prolifera by Babington (see Charac. Exsice. 
n. 17) with C. glomerata, Desv. in Lois. Not. p. 135 (date 1810). 
To this he refers a plant, gathered in Anglesea (Llyn Coron), in Borrer's 
herbarium. C. glomerata appears to be very closely allied to the true 
nidifica, but to be a smaller plant, with shorter branches and fewer arti- 
culations. To C. glomerata he refers Babington's C. Smithii as a 
doubtful synonym. This point cannot be settled till it is regathered, 
