■^ CHAKACE.E. 



in the capillitium or in the wall of the sporangium. These processes are mostly 

 completed in some hours ; in ^Ethalium one or two hours is generally sufficient to 

 transform the still motile plasmodium into the organs of reproduction ; the water 

 contained in the plasmodium is partially expelled in the fluid state, the remainder 

 subsequently evaporates. 



GROUP IL 

 CHARACE/E 



CLASS III. 

 C H A R A C E yE. 



The Characese are submerged aquatic plants, rooting in the ground and growing 

 erect, attaining a height of from ^^ metre to a metre, and containing abundance 

 of chlorophyll. They are very slender, forming stems and leaves only |- to 2 mm. 

 in thickness. With an alga-like habit, they possess a delicate structure, though 

 sometimes attaining greater firmness from the deposition of lime on their surface. 

 They live gregariously, mostly in crowded tufts at the bottom of fresh-water ponds, 

 ditches, and streams ; they may grow in deep or in shallow^, in stagnant or in 

 quickly flowing water ; and are either annual or perennial. 



In the greater number of species, which are distributed over all quarters of 

 the glo-be, there prevails nevertheless so great a uniformity that they may all be 

 arranged into two genera with some transitional forms ; while, on the other hand, 

 they are so different from all other classes of plants that they must be erected 

 into a special group by the side of the Thallophytes and Muscineae. Among the 

 Thallophytes they would approach most nearly to certain groups of Algae, but 

 diff'er from all the members of that group in the form of their antherozoids ; 

 and in this respect resemble the Muscineae, from which again they diff'er entirely 

 in the structure of the antheridia and of the female organs of reproduction, as we>ll 

 as in that of their organs of vegetation. 



' A. Braun, Ueber die Richtungsverhiiltnisse der Saftstrome in den Zellen der Charen in Monats- 

 l)eiichte der Berliner Akad. der Wiss. 1852 u. 1853. — Pringsheim, Ueber die nacktfiissigen Vorkeime 

 der Charen, in Jahrb. f. wissen. Bot. 1864, vol. III. — NTgeli, Die Rotationsstromung der Charen, in 

 dessen Beitrogen zur wissen. Bot. i860, vol.11, p. 61. — Thuret, Sur les antheridies des cryptogames, 

 Ann. des Sci. Nat. 1851, vol. XVI. p. 19. — Montagne, Multiplication des charagnes par division, 

 ditto, 1852, vol. XVIII. p. 65. — Goppert u. Cohn, Ueber die Rotation in Nitella flexilis, Bot. Zeitg. 

 1849. — De Bary, Ueber die Befruchtung der Charen, Monatsber. der Berliner Akad. May 1871. 

 [For additional Bibliography, see Lindley, Vegetable Kingdom, 3rd edit. p. 28.] 



