Chapter 1: The Characeae Plant

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bulbilifera. The natural range of the species is in North, South and Central America in
brackish habitats (Mann et al. 1999). Chara longifolia was originally collected from Kansas,
USA by M.A. Carleton in 1891 (Robinson 1906). The species was dioecious, had an
irregularly corticated axis, poor development of stipulodes (absent in older nodes) with c. 8
ecorticate branchlets in each whorl with distinctive decumbent bract cells. Robinson
commented on the similarity of this species with Nitellopsis, but described it as a new species
of Chara (Robinson 1906). The species was known only from its type collection (Wood
1965). In 1928 Dr Edward Buckell, a friend of the British charophyte specialist James
Groves, collected another specimen from British Colombia, Canada which was described by
Allen (1951) as Chara buckellii. Again, the specimens had irregularly or incompletely
corticated axes, with ecorticate branchlets and posterior bract cells distinctively deflected
downwards. Again, this species was known only from the type locality (Allen 1951; Wood
1965). In 1959 a specimen was cultured from soil collected from Laguna La Brava near
Buenos Aires, Argentina, by Carlotta Carl de Donterberg, who described it as Nitellopsis
bulbilifera (Carl de Donterberg 1960). Tindall et al. (1965) reported N. bulbilifera (cited as N.
bulbillifera) from New Mexico, and illustrated the morphology of the thallus. Although
Tindall et al. (1965) received Chara buckellii from V.W. Proctor in Texas for examination at
the time of their study of N. bulbilifera, they concluded that despite the common
characteristics with C. buckellii (dioecious nature, and similarity of morphology of the
branchlets and bract cells), the presence of a corticated stem and stipulodes in C. buckellii
was sufficient to distinguish the two taxa. Daily (1967) also examined the taxon, and
transferred all the previously described species to the genus Lamprothamnium, but this
taxonomic change was very short-lived, as in the next article in the same issue of J. Phycol.
Proctor et al. (1967) presented evidence that all of the species (Chara longifolia, C. buckellii
and N. bulbilifera) were conspecific. The evidence consisted of 1) similar morphology, 2) the
same number of chromosomes, and 3) the production of viable oospores when crossed. This
finding, and the designation to the genus Chara, has been further supported by genetic studies
(Meiers et al. 1999). Since all these taxa are the same species of Chara, the oldest name has
priority, thus the species is Chara longifolia C. B. Robinson.
1.4.3 Lessons to be learned
The morphology of ecorticate charophytes is relatively simple, and there are few outstanding
characters with which to distinguish species. Those that are available (arrangement and
angles of stipulodes and bract cells, arrangement of gametangia) are not always obvious or