90 Mr. C. C. Babington on the British species o/Chara. 



minute tubercles ; spines generally very numerous, sometimes 

 almost wanting ; whorls of elongate, acuminate (by having the 

 terminal segment denuded of outer tubes) branches, each of 

 which has about six nodes and a whorl of 4-5 short bracts at 

 each node. 



Pits and deep ditches, especially on a peaty soil. 



Annual. May to August. 



14. C. tomentosa (Linn.) ; dioecious (?), stem thickened upwards 

 spirally sulcate rough brittle armed with scattered obtuse pa- 

 pitta, branchlets incurved, bracts unilateral ovate-oblong mu- 

 cronate- acute, nucule shorter than the bract on each side of it 

 longer than the three in front. 



C. tomentosa, Linn. Sp. PI. 1624 ; Fries ! Herb. Norm. v. 100 ; Mu- 



tel Ft. Franc, iv. 163 ; Reich. ! Fl. exc. 150. 

 C. latifolia, Willd. ! " Berol. Schr. iii. 129 ;" Hook. Icon. t. 532. 

 C. ceratophylla /3. macroptila, A. Broun in Flora, xviii. 65 ; Ann. Sc. 



Nat. ser. 2. i. 355. 



The granules and nucules are probably upon different plants. 

 Stem opake, whitish green, covered with very minute tubercles, 

 and bearing distant somewhat whorled short obtuse papillae. 

 Branchlets like the stem ; their terminal division thicker, inflated, 

 of one pellucid tube. Bracts pellucid, barren ones unilateral (?). 

 " Nucule with a large ovate bract on each side, and three small 

 linear-oblong ones in front, also having three minute acute tu- 

 bercles on the opposite side of the stem. Globule from a whorl 

 of two or three large bracts not having smaller ones in front, 

 but with two or three tubercles on the opposite side of the stem." 

 Hooker. 



In the foreign plant (Reich. Fl. exsic. 92, which is the au- 

 thentic C. latifolia, Willd.), the bracts are apparently whorled. 

 Fries's specimen (Herb. Norm. v. 100) is without any incrusta- 

 tion, smooth and scarcely twisted. Our plant is certainly the 

 C. tomentosa (Linn.), C. latifolia (Willd.), and the C. ceratophylla 

 (Wallr.) is a variety of it. 



Belvidere Lake, Westmeath, Ireland, Mr. D. Moore. 



c. Stem coated with three times as many tubes as there are branchlets 

 in each whorl. 



15. C. aspera (Willd.); dioecious, stem finely striate smooth 

 flexible beset with setaceous patent spines, branchlets abbre- 

 viated, bracts whorled slender (two inner ones longer), nucules 

 narrowly oblong shorter than the bracts. 



C. aspera, " Willd. in Berol. Mag. d. N. iii. 298 ;" Wallr. Ann. Bot. 

 185. t. 6. f. 3 ; A. Braun ! in Flora, xviii. 71 ; Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 2. 

 i. 356 ; Mutel Fl. Franc, iv. 164 ; Coss. et Germ. Fl. Paris. 680 ; 

 Atl. t.38 D; Eng.Bot. Suppl. t. 2738; Fries] Herb. Norm. iii. 100. 



