12 CHARA. 
In rocks of the Jurassic system several species have been dis- 
covered. Saporta,! in his important contributions to the Jurassic 
botany of France, institutes a new species, Chara Bleichert, from 
Oxfordian rocks at Cajase in the Départment Lot. 
Heer? named aspecies, Chara Jaccardi, Hr., from the Purbeckian 
of Villers-le-lac and other localities in the Canton Neuchatel; this 
species is also recorded by Saporta,® on the authority of Giradot, 
from the same geological horizon in the neighbourhood of Pont 
de la Choux. Another species, Chara Maillardi, Sap., has recently 
been described from this district by Saporta,* but his figures show 
the spiral markings of the encasing cells almost longitudinally 
placed, and, indeed, the drawings are by no means convincing as 
regards botanic affinity. 
Heer’s species, Chara Jaccardi, Hr., is quoted by Schenk? from 
beds which may be of Wealden age, at Locle in the Canton 
Neuenburg. In Britain we have a reference by Phillips® to the 
occurrence of Chara in the ‘‘ Upper part of the Wealden deposits” 
of Swanage Bay, Isle of Purbeck; the same genus is included 
in the list of Isle of Wight fossils in Bristow’s Memoir’ on the 
Geology of that island, from a locality between Brixton and 
Atherfield. 
So far as I am able to discover, no specific name has been applied 
to these English Mesozoic Charas. In the Museum of Practical 
Geology, Jermyn Street, there is a specimen showing a number of 
hollow casts of the Isle of Wight Charas; these should probably be 
included in the species Chara Knowltoni, sp. nov. A few of the 
more clearly preserved casts show that there were about 10-12 
almost horizontal lines on the surface of the oogonia. The casts 
are somewhat longer and narrower than the impressions from 
Ecclesbourne, but this may be due to the fact that the latter have 
been more crushed, and have, therefore, an apparently greater 
breadth. 
1 Pal. Frang. sér. ii. vol. i. p. 214, pl. ix. figs. 8 and 9. 
2 Urwelt, 1879, p. 176. 
8 Pal. Franc. sér. ii. vol. i. p. 216, pl. ix. figs. 12 and 13. 
4 Ibid. ii. vol. iv. p. 499, pl. Ixxii dis. 
5 Paleontographica, vol. xix. p. 204, pl. xxv. fig. 1. 
® Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1858, p. 46. 
7 Mem. Geol. Sury. 1889, p. 258. 
