CHAR A. 99 



5. CHARA HISPIDA. 



Char. Stem more or less thickly covered with a calca- 

 reous crust, opaque, brittle, striated, spinulose, or hispid. 

 Branches of the ivhorls subulate ; the fertile ones ivith many 

 ivhorls of short ramuli or bractece, of which three or four 

 are larger than the nucule and globule that they accom- 

 pany. 



Chara hispida, Eng. Bot. 463. 2d ed. 1475 ; Smith, i. 7. ; 

 Hook. Crypt. Part 1. p. 246. ; Macreight, 278. ; Ag. Syst. 

 128. 



" Not uncommon in ditches, lakes, and turfy bog pools. 

 The stony incrustation is sometimes so thick as to give the 

 plant the appearance of a petrifaction, which in other habitats 

 is nearly wanting. Almost as foatid as C. vulgaris. It is 

 by far the largest of the true Chares in this country in its 

 ordinary form ; and, though varying in the thickness of its 

 stem and branches, can never be confounded with the slender 

 and more delicate C. aspera. 



" A smaller variety is occasionally met with in which the 

 spinules are obsolete, or nearly so : the C. hispida ft' of 

 Agardh and Smith, /3 gracilis of Hooker, Eng. Bot." 



6. CHARA LATIFOLIA. 



" This fine species, which I have no hesitation in stating to 

 be new to Britain, occurred in great abundance in Belvidere 

 Lake, county Westmeath, where I collected it in August last. 

 The great size and semipellucid appearance at once struck 

 me as remarkable. The main branches are striated and 

 covered with raised rough points, as are the first joints of the 

 whorled ramuli, while the remaining portion consists only of 

 one pellucid tube, which is thicker than the lower joints, and 

 ends in a sharp point. The branches of the whorls are again 

 beset with smaller ramuli (not bractere), in which respect it 

 differs from all our species in the opaque division. 1 regret 

 I could not find the species in fruit, neither globule nor 



H 2 



