1905] Fernald, Spergula sativa in Connecticut ISI 
SPERGULA SATIVA IN CONNECTICUT. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
Dr. C. B. Graves has sent to the Gray Herbarium a specimen of 
Spergula sativa, Boenn., collected in a cultivated field at New Lon- 
don, Connecticut, June 11, 1903. So far as I am aware this is the 
first occurrence of the plant in the United States although it is super- 
ficially so near the commonly established S. arvensis, L., that it has 
possibly escaped detection. In fact, the plant collected at Ottawa, 
Canada, in July, 1892, by Mr. J. Fletcher and distributed as .S. arven- 
sis (no. 115) in Halsted's American Weeds is very characteristic S. 
sativa. : 
In Europe there are several closely related species of Spergula 
differing in seed characters and geographic ranges; and since the 
status of S. arvensis and S. sativa has been very fully discussed by 
certain European authors it is well here to review the results of these 
studies. For some time the two plants, one with the seeds more or 
less covered with white papillae, the other with seeds quite without 
papillae, were not distinguished. In 1824, however, Boenninghausen ' 
divided the so-called S. arvensis into two species, S. sativa with 
smooth seeds, and .S. vulgaris with papillose seeds. These two 
plants have been regarded sometimes as species, sometimes as varie- 
ties; and by many continental and some British botanists the smooth- 
seeded plant was long supposed to be the true Linnean S. arvensis. 
This view was still current in 1880, when Mr. George Nicholson * 
called attention to the occurrence of the two plants in Britain, and 
showed that the papillose seeded plant (Spergula vulgaris, Boenn.) 
was of broad distribution over continental Europe, though rare in the 
British Isles, and that it was the only species established in America. 
S. sativa, according to Mr. Nicholson, is a more northern plant, com- 
mon in Britain and Scandinavia, but less common in central and 
southern Europe. This northern plant, S. sativa, “has minutely 
punctulate, margined seeds, and in a living state can be distinguished 
by its decidedly viscous, dull grey-green leaves and branches; on the 
other hand, in S. vulgaris the seeds are obscurely margined, or totally 
!Prodr. Fl. Monast. 135 (1824). ? Journ. Bot. xviii. 16-19 (1880). 
