''Chara braunii'' is one of only several
ecorticated species of the genus ''
Chara'' occurring in Europe and the only species without
cortication known from
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
.
[Jacek Urbaniak, "Distribution of ''Chara braunii'' Gmellin 1826 ('']Charophyta
Charophyta () is a group of freshwater green algae, called charophytes (), sometimes treated as a division, yet also as a superdivision or an unranked clade. The terrestrial plants, the Embryophyta emerged within Charophyta, possibly from terre ...
'') in Poland",
link
retrieved November 30, 2015), ''Acta Societatis Botanicorum Polonae'', vol. 76, no. 4, pp. 313-320, 2007 ''Chara braunii'' is the first Charophyceae for which the whole nuclear genome has been sequenced and published.
The findings of ''C. braunii'' in southern Poland only in fish ponds may have suggested that this species is restricted only to this type of ecosystem, but this is not true.
Description
The plant is small to medium size.
Fresh green to brownish green when found in the muddy bottom.
Transparent and richly branched. Plants are entirely ecorticate (i.e., without cortex).
The main axis slender up to 1200 µm in diameter.
The
stipulodes (single cell organs present in one or more rows in the