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MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
Chara polyacantha. Two years ago I removed from Royden 
Fen, in Norfolk, specimens of Chara polyacantha , A. Br., which 
I have since cultivated in an aquarium. When collected the plants 
showed, in a very exaggerated form, the long basal cell ( stielzelle ) of 
the antheridium noted by A. Braun in that variety which Ivutzing 
named C. spondyloplxylla. A similar lengthening of the basal 
cell of the antheridium is stated by W. Migula (Rabernliorst’s 
‘ Kryptogamen-flora : Die Characeen,’ p. 36) to have been observed 
by him on one occasion in a specimen of C. ceratopliylla. The 
plants have fruited freely both last year and this, but on neither 
occasion have I been able to see on them what Braun called 
“ lang gestielte Antheridien.” Instead of this the archegonia 
have developed very long stalks. This does not take place until 
late in the life of the archegonium, and consequently is not 
observed in the upper whorls of leaves at first. Long after 
fertilization, and when the archegonium has attained a black 
colour, the basal cell (which is an equivalent internodal cell) 
lengthens suddenly, in some cases reaching a length of half 
a centimetre, and pushes the ripe archegonium quite out of the 
whorl of leaves. The elongated basal cell remains quite colourless, 
and is at first sight indistinguishable. The slightly elongated stalk 
cells of the archegonia of species of Tolypella are well known, but 
I can find no record whatever of such a thing in any other species 
of the Characece. — John Bidgood. 
Note on Silene inflata and Trifolium agrarium. In the 
last ‘Transactions’ (vol. v. part 3, pp. 329, 330) Mr. H. D. Geldart 
reports finding a patch of Silene inflata and S. maritima growing 
together at Wells, and asks the question whether Bentham was 
not right in uniting the two species. Mr. Geldart does not 
say whether any of the plants seemed intermediate in character ; 
but he cannot mean that the fact of two species casually growing 
intermixed is an argument for regarding them as one species 
rather than two, even in a case in which the two species happen 
to be closely allied. I have on one occasion found a quantity 
of S. inflata and S. maritima scattered over about an acre of 
ground in the Mendips, a few miles from Cheddar, and most of 
the plants were easily placed to one or the other, the characters 
being distinctly maintained ; but there were some two or three 
roots, where the species grew thickest, which were fairly puzzling, 
