BULLETIN 205, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



DESCRIPTION OF PLANTS. 



Musk grasses belong to the great group of plants known as 

 alga?, which include forms commonly known as frog spit, green 

 slime, and seaweeds. Most of the musk grasses (Characese) live 

 in fresh water and are among the most highly organized algae that 

 do so. They are attached to the bottom, and over it often form a 

 fluffy blanket a foot or more in thickness. Small round white tubers 

 occur in numbers on the rhizoids (root-like organs) of some species. 

 The slender stems are jointed and bear at the joints whorls of fine 



tubular leaves, which usually 

 have a beaded appearance (fig. 

 1), due to the reproductive 

 organs growing there. These 

 are of two sorts: the anther- 

 idia, which are spherical and 

 red when mature, and the 

 oogonia, which are ovoid and 

 black, more or less overlaid 

 with white. The oogonia cor- 

 respond to the seeds of higher 

 plants, and are about half a 

 millimeter in length. 



These plants are translucent 

 and fragile, dull green in color, 

 and often (Chara) incrusted 

 with lime. This has given 

 them one of their common 

 names, limeweed. Other 

 names are stonewort, fine moss 

 (Michigan), oyster grass and 

 nigger wool (North Carolina) , 

 and skunk grass (Massachu- 

 setts). The latter name and 

 that here adopted for the 

 plants, namely, musk grass, refer to a strong odor given off by a mass 

 of the plants when freshly taken from the water. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Probably no part of the United States entirely lacks representa- 

 tives of CTiara or Nitella, our two genera of Characese. They require 

 lime, however, and hence reach their best development in regions 

 where that mineral is plentiful. 



PROPAGATION. 



For transplanting, musk grasses should be gathered in quantity in 

 late summer or fall, when some or all of the oogonia are mature. For 



Fig. 1. — A musk grass ( Chara). 



