MONANDRIA, MONOGYJSflA. Chara. 
3 
this var. only differs from the above by the accidental circumstance of 
growing in purer waters, thus escaping the calcareous incrustation. E.) 
In a gutter in Peckham fields; not in the great ditches. Ray. 
(Is the plant described and figured in E. Bot. 2140, as C. gracilis , other 
than this var. of C. vulgaris f Or as Mr. Dawson Turner seems to con¬ 
jecture, of C. Jlexilis ? if we rightly understand his note in Bot. Guide, 
p. 598. And thus it appears to be designated by Messrs. Hooker and 
Greville. Sir J. E. Smith adds, “This species., and C.Jlexilis, first taught 
me to consider Chara as having no real leaves; which preceding writers 
have termed so, being in no respect different from the branches, in struc¬ 
ture or economy, as they often bear the flowers.” E.) 
C. his'pxda. Prickles on the stem hair-like, in clusters. 
(E. Bot. 463. E.)—Fl. Dan. 154,—Pluk. 193. 6. 
Pale green when fresh. Prickles often reflexed. Linn .—Plant brittle, rough, 
incrusted with calcareous matter. Stem twisted spirally, its lower part 
and branches and lower leaves frequently naked; upper part thick set 
with prickles. Leaves eight to ten in a whorl. Prickles in bundles, at 
short distances on the upper side of the leaves, resembling half whorls. 
Not so fetid as C. vulgaris. Woodw. Whole plant with a strong scent of 
garlic, glaucous green. Stem branched. Leaves eight or ten in a whorl. 
Germen egg-shaped, of a dull pale yellow. Summits dirty green. Anther 
orange-coloured. 
Prickly Stonewort. (Irish: Cuirridin gauhair. Welsh: Rhaivn yr ehol 
gwrychog. E.) Ditches and pools, in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and West¬ 
moreland. Turf bogs, Ellingham, Norfolk. Mr. Woodward. At the 
bottom of a spring in a meadow near Gay ton, Staffordshire. Stokes. 
(Formby ten miles. N. of Liverpool, Dr. Bostock. Peat pits in Anglesey, 
not uncommon. Rev. H. Davies. In the water course by the side of 
Hinton Moor, Sawston Moor, &c. Cambridgeshire. Relhan. In bog- 
pools on Wareham, Poole, and Cranford Heath, Pulteney. Stagnant 
waters about Rhyd Marsh, Flintshire. Mr. Griffith Cromlyn Bog, 
near Swansea, with C. Jlexilis: and on Finchley Common, Middlesex. 
Mr. J. Wood, jun. Bot. Guide. Pools on Hartley Links, Northumber¬ 
land. Mr. Winch. Ditches at Glassmont, Fifeshire. Greville. Frequent 
in the fen commons of Suffolk. E.) A. June—Oct.* 
C. flex'ilis. (Neither prickly, nor incrusted: leaves mostly cloven.) 
{E. Bot. 1070. E.)— Schmid «, 14. 
Stems one or two feet long, floating under water, but near the surface, 
covered, not as the rest of this genus with an incrustation, but with a thin 
green rind. Leaves in whorls, which towards the root are two inches or 
more from each other, towards the end from one to half an inch; of the 
same structure with the stem, when fully grown from one to one inch 
and a half long. Fructifications naked, on the upper whorls, on the 
* (Mr. Brunton, in the Botanist’s Guide, observes that in the ditches near Ripon, 
where the water has never touched lime stone, this plant is beautifully green ; in which 
case it possesses the property of absorbing carbonic acid gas, by which the lime has been 
held in solution, in a greater degree than any other water plant except perhaps C. vulgaris. 
Drs. Brewster and Greville are of opinion that the calcareous matter of the stem and 
branches of some species of Chara is produced hy a peculiar economy of the plant itself, 
and not a mere adventitious incrustation; as it evidently originates from within, and i« 
covered by the cuticle. An analogous process is observable in the siliceous deposit of the 
Equiseta. E.) 
