CHARA FRAGIFERA. 61 



Portugal, Algiers, Tunis, and from one locality in 

 Cape Colony. 



Normally an extremely slender flexuous plant of medium 

 stature, moderately branched, and without incrustation. A 

 small form with shorter and stouter branchlets was collected by 

 J. Cunnack near Helston, and a dwarf much-branched and 

 tufted form occurred in the large shallow ponds on the Lizard 

 plateau known as Hayle Kimbro and Ruan Pool. The fertile 

 branchlet-nodes on this species are unusually numerous. On a 

 French specimen we have counted as many as seven antheridia 

 on one branchlet. Nordstedt (1. c.) described a variety oligospira 

 from Algiers, showing only 8 ridges on the oospore. The French 

 plant has sometimes much larger antheridia than ours. 



On a whorl of one of the Helston specimens of the female plant,, 

 a few antheridia were found on the same branchlets as fruits, 

 but at different nodes. 



C. fragifera is distinguished from the other dioecious unarmed 

 species of the Section, C. connivens, by its more slender stem, 

 more slender and flexuous and less connivent branchlets, greater 

 number of branchlet-segments, shorter and broader coronula 

 and less cylindrical fruit ; from C. fragilis and C. delicatula in 

 being dioecious, in the greater number of branchlet-joints and 

 the shorter bract-cells ; from G. delicatula also in both series of 

 stipulodes being rudimentary ; from C. aspera, G. desmacantha, 

 and G. galioides, apart from the rudimentary spine-cells, by the 

 rudimentary stipulodes, more numerous branchlet-joints and 

 much shorter bract-cells. The most distinctive character, 

 however, consists in the remarkable composite bulbils, sometimes 

 attaining a diameter of 7 rom., which, from their fancied 

 resemblance to strawberries, gave rise to the specific name. 

 Durieu reported the occasional presence of unicellular bulbils in 

 this species, but Braun, who carefully investigated the matter, 

 has shown (' Monatsb. Akad. Berl.' for 1867 p. 936) that these- 

 belonged to a form of G. aspera growing interpoixed with it 



B. Monoecise. 



15. Chara fragilis Desvaux. 

 [Plate XLIII, (var. Hedwigii).] 



C. vulgaris Linn. Sp. Plant, p. 1156 (1753), pro parte. 



C. capillacea Thuillier, Tlor. env. Par. p. 474 (1799), ^cie Braun. 

 KuTZiNG Tab. Phyc. VII, t. 55, f. 2 (1857). 



