CHARA (stonewort) | Cell structure | Reproduction | General appearance, height and location.

 Chara 

(Charophyta)

• Chara is commonly known as “stonewort”. 
• The body of Chara is encrusted with calcium and magnesium carbonate, especially on the algae growing in deep water. 
• That's why the Chara has so much strengthened that we called them stoneworts. 
• Chara is a macroscopic, multicellular, profusely branched thalloid algal body. 
• It mostly attains a height of about 20-30 cm and in some cases, it grows about 1 meter in length. 
• It has a rhizoid and a main axis.
• The rhizoids help to anchor them on the substratum (i.e. rocks).  
• The main axis can be differentiated into nodes and internodes. 
• Each node bears several branches of limited growth and sometimes a single branch of unlimited growth. 

 The cell structure of Chara:

• Chara has nodes and internodes in their body structure.  
• The nodal cells are short, uninucleated with dense and granular cytoplasm, and have discoid chloroplasts without pyrenoids. 
• Small vacuoles may also be present in the cytoplasm of nodal cells. 
• The internodal cells are long, with a large central vacuole and many nuclei, and also have discoid chloroplasts in the cytoplasm. 
• The cytoplasm is differentiated into outer ectoplasm and inner endoplasm of the inter-nodal region.

 

Chara, with a structure of nodes and internodes

 Reproduction in Chara: 

Vegetative reproduction.

• Vegetative reproduction takes place in the specialized starlike, tuber-like, and protonema-like structures of the chara.
• It means these parts if broken then they can reproduce a new individual. 

Sexual reproduction. 

• Chara has the oogamous type of sexual reproduction which is the most advanced type of reproduction in algae.
• The egg is present in a special structure called a nucule which is very much protected.
• The male gamete is formed inside a structure called a globule which is round and develops many antherozoids. 
• A zygote is produced after the fertilization of both male and female gametes.
• During germination, the zygote undergoes meiosis and gradually it forms the new algal body of Chara.