162 THE FERN-ALLIES OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. 



MARSILIACEAE. 

 Marsilia. 



Creeping mud-plants rhizome long, slender. Leaves solitary 

 or in tufts, of a slender usually long petiole and 4 sessile ob- 

 cuneate deltoid leaflets. Sporacarps oblong or globose, sessile or 

 stalked at the base of the leaves, containing both macrospores and 

 microspores. 



Species about 50. Whole World. 



M. erosa, Willd. Sp. v. 540. 



M. minuta, L. Mantissa 308 in part. Bak., Fern-Allies, p. 140 

 in part. 



Ehizome long, creeping, slender or short, stout red, hairy 

 buds especially (or glabrous). Leaves crowded or on slender 

 rhizomes distant petiole*, slender 6 in. or less, more or less 

 red, hairy at base and top, leaflets obcuneate, top round, fan- 

 shaped .5 in. long .75 in. wide, glabrous. Sporocarps 2 or 

 more at base of a leaf .15 in. long, oblong, rounded, slightly 

 crenate, densely hairy as in the short free pedicel. 



Peov. Wellesley in ditches, Nibong Tebal (Ridley). 

 Penang, formerly very abundant in ditches along the golf 

 course. 



Distrib. India, Java, Philippines, Loo Cho. 



This plant varies much in size and there is a very small 

 form with very small leaves, the leaflets not .25 in. long and 

 longer pedicels than the above described. The tall leaved 

 form is recorded in books as aquatic and sterile. This is not 

 so in Province Wellesley where it grew in mud and was fertile. 

 It was from the small form that Linnaeus gave the species its 

 unfortunate name. 



CHARACEAE. 



The Characeae are fragile submerged green plants with branch- 

 ed stems furnished at the nodes with whorls of branchlets (often 

 called leaves) at the base of which are two or more rarely one 

 Avhorl of cells (stipulodes). The branchlets are simple or one or 

 more times forked into rays with partial or complete whorls of 

 secondary branchlets (bractsj. The male and female organs are 

 developed at the extremities of the branchlets or at their nodes in 

 the axils of the bracts. The male organs (globules) are spherical 

 at first, green, later red or yellowish. The female (nucules) sub- 

 globular, ovoid or fusiform, reddish yellow or olive, consisting of 

 a nucleus with 5 cells coiled spirally round it and terminated by a 

 coronula of 5 cells in 1 row or 10 less prominent in 2 rows. 



These plants have not been carefully collected in the Malay 

 Peninsula, but I have preserved some specimens which Mr. J. 

 Groves, the best authority on these plants has been kind enough 

 to identify. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



