106 BRITISH CHABOPHYTA. 



The specific name flexilis has been retained for the present 

 species, although, as pointed out by Dr. Nordstedt, there is 

 little doubt the actual plant Linnaeus had before him, when 

 he published the name, was Tolypella nidifica, and the habitat 

 given "in Europse maritimis" would not apply to N. flexilis. 

 The description in ' Sp. Plant.' p. 1157 reads :;:^" Chara 

 caulium articulis inermibus diaphanis superne latioribus." 

 It. gotl. 215. Ft. suec. 995." The only synonym quoted is 

 "Chara transfluens \_sic] minor flexilis. Raj. angl. 3, p. 133," 

 and this would not refer to T. nidifica. It is curious that 

 Linnaeus made no reference to Vaillant's two figures of 

 Nitellas. We can only conclude, there being no other of his 

 species under which. they could be placed, that Linnaeus did 

 not discriminate between the Nitelleae which had come before 

 him, of which no doubt there would have been several, and 

 that he included them all under the one species. Dr. Nord- 

 stedt in his "Scandinaviens Characeer" ('Bot. Notiser,' 1863, 

 p. 35) adopted Reichenbach's name fiirculata for the present 

 species, applying that of N. flexilis to Tolypella nidifica, the 

 genus Tolypella being then generally regarded as a subgenus 

 of Nitella. This course has not however been followed by 

 other authors. Agardh, in discriminating N. opaca, limited 

 the name of flexilis to its present application, and this view 

 has been generally adopted. 



Var. b. crassa. 



Beatjn in Braun, Rabenli. & Stiz. Oharac. Exs. 101 (1877) ; Aees- 

 CHOUG Exa. 391 ; Noedstbdt & Wahlstedt Exs. 14 ; Groves 



Exs. 27. 



Stem and branchlefs much stouter thau in the type. 

 Primary rays of sterile branchlets straight ; secondary 

 rays usually shorter than in the type, sometimes less 

 than one-eighth the length of the primary, often single. 



In lakes, in rather deep water. Westmoreland,. 

 Kirkcudbright, Perth, W., M.,& E., Longford, Donegal, 

 W- 



Seemingly confined to the Northern lakes. In its extreme 

 form it is strikingly different from the type, having a much 

 stouter stem and branchlets. 



