BOTANY county has not received the attention which it deserves. Many districts are still waiting to be worked. From the subjoined census it will be seen that North-Central Norfolk has really not been touched, and there are other districts which would well repay a more careful investigation. 'Tolypella intricata must certainly occur in the county. Chara baltka may be reasonably looked for in the brackish waters of the broads, and Nitella capitata inhabits waters in Cambridgeshire which are in direct communi- cation with Norfolk. Before proceeding to give a tabulated list of the Norfolk Charads, it may be well to make a few observations regarding some of the rarer of its species. C connivens, Braun, confines itself to the sea coasts and brackish waters. It has been recorded from four localities only in England. Mr. Borrer's Herbarium at Kew contains a specimen collected at Stokes Bay, Gosport, in 1828. Fifty years afterwards it was found at Slapton Sands, South Devon. In 1889 it was collected by Mr. J. Bidgood in Heigham Sound, Norfolk, and in 1897 by the Rev. G. R. Bullock- Webster near Benacre Broad, Suffolk. It is a singularly fugitive plant, and probably a careful search in all the above-named stations would fail to discover it. C. aspera, Willd., sub-species desmacantha, H. and J. Groves, grows in great profusion and in a characteristic form in the turf fens which surround the head waters of the Waveney. The plant occurs also in Hickling Broad and in the meres to the north of Thetford. C. polyacantha, Braun, though a rare plant, and confined to seven counties in England, is abundant in the Norfolk broads. A specimen from Hickling Broad appears in Groves' Characece Britannica Exsiccatce (Fasc. i. 10), described by them as '■forma horrida, Braun.' C. polyacantha is abundant in the Waveney fens, and it probably occurs in the Western area of the county, since it has been collected in west Suffolk in close proximity to the Norfolk border. A Chara collected by Mr. H. Groves in Heigham Sound in 1884 was attributed by him and his brother to C. papulosa, Kuetz. {Journal oj Botany, vol. xxiv., January, 1886). But a more familiar acquaintance with the plant, as its growth and development have been watched through successive years, has led them to the conclusion that it is a hybrid C. hispida and C. contraria {vide Fasc. ii. 42). It grows very freely in part of Hickling Broad, and produces globules and nucules. C. hispida, Linn., grows very freely in Norfolk, and exhibits a remarkable variety of forms well meriting a closer attention. C. canescens, Loisel., is a recent addition to the county. For many years its only known English habitat was Budock Pool, near Falmouth. In 1879 Mr. King discovered it in Dorsetshire, and five years later Mr. H. Groves collected it at the Lizard. A very wide addition to its area of distribution was made by Messrs. Salmon when, in 1896, they gathered it in two broads in east Suffolk. In 1899 it was found in Hickling Broad by Mr. Bullock- Webster. The special peculiarity of this species is the extreme rarity of the globule-bearing (male) plant, 59
