152 Rhodora [AucusT 
devoid of wing, and beset with club-shaped papillae, generally quite 
black in fully-matured seeds. When growing the latter is conspic- 
uous on account of its light grass-green leaves, altogether brighter- 
looking and less viscid than the former plant.” * 
In 1891, Mr. G. Claridge Druce,? the discriminating curator of the 
Fielding Herbarium at Oxford, showed that in the Linnean Herba- 
rium “the only specimen labelled S. arvensis is quite typical S. vuZ- 
garis Boenn., as is the specimen in ort. Clif. The Morisonian 
plant is also S. vulgaris.’ Thus, from Mr. Druce’s studies, there is 
no question that the papillose-seeded plant, now so commonly estab- 
lished in America, is the true S. arvensis of Linnaeus. Mr. Druce 
reiterates the statement of distribution previously made by Mr. 
Nicholson and in regard to the viscid character of S. sativa says fur- 
ther: “The difference in the relative viscoscity of S. sativa and 
S. vulgaris was strongly impressed upon my mind in September last, 
when I found S. sativa (accompanied with S. vulgaris) for the first 
time in Berks in a sandy field on Boars Hill, near Oxford, growing 
with many plants of Senecio Jacobaea. It was a singular fact that 
plants of S. sativa might be picked out from those of sS, vulgaris 
[S. arvensis], from their being more or less covered with the pappus 
of the Senecio which in its wind-driven progress across the field 
became attached to S. sativa, but which the less viscid foliage of .S. 
vulgaris [S. arvensis] did not retain." Later, in 1897, Mr. Druce 
said “The flowers of S. sativa have a valerianaceous odor which I 
have not noticed in S. vulgaris [S. arvensis], but I by no means 
assert that it is not present in the latter.” 3 
The appearance in Connecticut and formerly at Ottawa of the 
smooth-seeded highly viscous Spergula sativa of northern Europe 
suggests that it may occur in other parts of the Eastern States and 
Canada; and it is hoped that the foregoing notes derived largely 
from European sources may be of service to those who watch for the 
plant in America. 
Gray HERBARIUM. 
1 Journ. Bot. 1. c. 17. 
? Jour. Bot. xxix. 173-175 (1891). 
? Druce, Fl. Berks. 102 (1897). 
