BOTANY 



county has not received the attention which it deserves. Many districts 

 are still w^aiting to be worked. From the subjoined census it will be 

 seen that North-Central Norfolk has really not been touched, and there 

 are other districts which would well repay a more careful investigation. 

 Tolypella intricata must certainly occur in the county. Chara baltica may 

 be reasonably looked for in the brackish waters of the broads, and Nitella 

 capitata inhabits waters in Cambridgeshire which are in direct communi- 

 cation with Norfolk. 



Before proceeding to give a tabulated list of the Norfolk Charads, it 

 may be well to make a few observations regarding some of the rarer of 

 its species. 



C connivens, Braun, confines itself to the sea coasts and brackish 

 waters. It has been recorded from four localities only in England. Mr. 

 Borrer's Herbarium at Kew contains a specimen collected at Stokes Bay, 

 Gosport, in 1828. Fifty years afterwards it was found at Slapton Sands, 

 South Devon. In 1889 it was collected by Mr. J. Bidgood in Heigham 

 Sound, Norfolk, and in 1897 by the Rev. G. R. Bullock-Webster near 

 Benacre Broad, Suffolk. It is a singularly fugitive plant, and probably a 

 careful search in all the above-named stations would fail to discover it. 



C. aspera, Willd., sub-species desmacantha, H. and J. Groves, grows 

 in great profusion and in a characteristic form in the turf fens which 

 surround the head waters of the Waveney. The plant occurs also in 

 Hickling Broad and in the meres to the north of Thetford. 



C. polyacantha, Braun, though a rare plant, and confined to seven 

 counties in England, is abundant in the Norfolk broads. A specimen 

 from Hickling Broad appears in Groves' Characece Britannica 'Exsiccates 

 (Fasc. i. 10), described by them as ^ forma horrida, Braun.' C. polyacantha 

 is abundant in the Waveney fens, and it probably occurs in the Western 

 area of the county, since it has been collected in west Suffolk in close 

 proximity to the Norfolk border. 



A Chara collected by Mr. H. Groves in Heigham Sound in 1884 

 was attributed by him and his brother to C. papulosa, Kuetz. {journal of 

 Botany, vol. xxiv., January, 1886). But a more familiar acquaintance 

 with the plant, as its growth and development have been watched 

 through successive years, has led them to the conclusion that it is a 

 hybrid C. hispida and C. contraria {vide Fasc. ii. 42). It grows very 

 freely in part of Hickling Broad, and produces globules and nucules. 



C. hispida, Linn., grows very freely in Norfolk, and exhibits a 

 remarkable variety of forms well meriting a closer attention. 



C. canescens, Loisel., is a recent addition to the county. For many 

 years its only known English habitat was Budock Pool, near Falmouth. 

 In 1879 Mr. King discovered it in Dorsetshire, and five years later Mr. 

 H. Groves collected it at the Lizard. A very wide addition to its area 

 of distribution was made by Messrs. Salmon when, in 1896, they 

 gathered it in two broads in east Suffolk. In 1899 it was found in 

 Hickling Broad by Mr. Bullock- Webster. The special peculiarity 

 of this species is the extreme rarity of the globule-bearing (male) plant, 



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