428 SOME NATURAL HISTORY RECORDS. 



divided into 5 rays, or simple. Fruits solitary, occurring on the 

 primary branchlets at the second and third and more rarely at 

 the first forkings, sometimes on the secondary branchlets also, 

 •5--62 nam. long, •38-41 thick, showing 9-10 striee; coronula 

 •075 mm. broad, "045 high ; oospore (unripe) brown, decidedly 

 flattened, about '28 mm. long, -26 thick in the broader diameter, 

 •18 in the narrower. Antheridia occurring at all the forkings, 

 though less commonly at the first, •35--42 in diameter. Mono- 

 cious. 



An extremely beautiful plant, at once distinguished from, 

 all the other British species by the presence of the secondary 

 branchlets, being the only European representative of Braun's 

 section Diarthrodact'yl(B, heterophyllce. The English plant is a 

 large lax form, which would be included in Braun's var. 

 maxima, though more slender than the Bayonne plant. The 

 species is world-wide in its distribution, occurring almost 

 throughout Europe, in Asia, Africa (N. and S.), N. America, 

 and Australasia. It was discovered in Britain in August of the 

 present year by the Rev. G. E. Bullock- Webster, growing in 

 some quantity on thick mud in 4-5 feet of water, in The Loe, 

 a lake separated from the sea by a narrow sand-bar, near 

 Helston, West Cornwall." 



Explanation of Plate. — a. — Nitella hyalina, Agardh, from the Loe, 

 West Cornwall ; plant natural size. b. — Portion of whorl showing a primary 

 and upper and lower secondary branchlets x 7^. c. — Apices of terminal rays 

 J gQ_ j,_ — Young ditto x 60. e. — Node of branchlet with antheridium x 30. 

 /.—Plates of Antheridium x 60. gf.— Fruit x 30. ?!,.— Unripe oospore, broadest 

 view X 30. i.— Ditto, narrowest view x 30. fc. — Apex of fruit, showing coronula 

 X 140. 



In their " Notes " Messrs. Groves record another interesting 

 Cornish discovery by the Eev. G. K. Bullock-Webster, viz : — 

 a sub-species of Chara aspera, to which the varietal name of 

 desmacantha has been given. This rarity, which is recorded for 

 a few other counties, was found growing in Hayle Kimbra, 

 near the Lizard, last summer. Its characters are set down as — 

 " Stem usually considerably thicker than in the type ; cortex 

 very imperfectly triplostichous, the secondary cells joining 

 obliquely ; cortical nodes more numerous, 14-18 to an internode 

 of the stem ; spine-cells usually in groups of 3-5." 



