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CALLITRICHE TRUNCATA Guss (Short Leaved Water-
starwort) New to Essex
Most people, including many professional bot-
anists, shy away from the water starworts as
they are so plastic in morphology that they are
difficult to identify until one really gets to
know them. On the Langford Bridge field
meeting, however, we came across a water Star-
wort that really did look different. Several
large dense patches were growing in the
shallows at the western end of the fishing lake
below Great Myles, Kelvedon Hatch. All the
leaves were submerged, and much smaller and
darker green that the ordinary Callitriche
stagnalis growing nearby. In -fact, the
leaves had a peculiar reddish tinge. On
taking home some material I found that the four
segments (mericarps) of the young fruits were
rounded on the back and not at all keeled; 
and usually only one of them was swollen and
likely to become anywhere near mature. In
fact the majority of the mericarps break up
individually and detach well before they
mature.
The leaves of C, truncata Are strap-shaped,
less than 1 cm long, and translucent with a
peculiar truncated ape;-; bearing two horny
spines, and there is no sign of the peculiar
peltate hairs found on the leaf surfaces of all
our British species of Callitriche except
C. truncata and C. hermaphroditica (see
inset).
This is not the first time, however, that
C. truncata has been found in Essex. In
July this year Tim Pyner found it growing in