1909] Fernald,— Variations of Arenaria peploides 111 
southward was distinguished by Hooker as Arenaria peploides, f. 
major‘ and it was later described by Torrey and Gray as a distinct 
species, Honckenya oblongifolia? Hookers description is very brief 
but the citation of the type from De Fuca's Straits as well as a fragment 
of the material preserved in the Gray Herbarium indicates that his 
plant is identical with that described by Torrey and Gray. A. pep- 
loides, var. major is clearly separable from true A. peploides with ovate 
leaves and well developed cymes by its thicker, more fleshy s ems 
(in dried plants varying from 2-4 mm. in diameter), its more elongate 
branches with few axillary slender-pedice'ed flowers, its larger leaves, 
and the narrower acuminate sepals. 
The common plant of the Atlantic coast from the mouth of the 
St. Lawrence southward is even more fleshy than the Pacific coast 
var. major, the elongate, erect or strongly ascending, rigid branches 
(“large as a goose quill” according to William Oakes ?) measuring in 
dried specimens 2.5-6 mm. in thickness. Its leaves are oblong or 
oblong-ovate, very thick and coriaceous, and scarcely narrowed at 
base. Its few flowers are borne in the upper axils on very short thick 
pedicels; its ovate sepals are obtuse or at most subacute; the thick- 
walled capsules 8-12 mm. in diameter; and the mature seeds dark 
brown, distinctly papillose and scarcely lustrous. Superficially this 
rigid thick-stemmed plant of the Atlantic seaboard suggests the Pacific 
coast Arenaria peploides, var. major, but that well distinguished plant 
has the thinner larger leaves narrowed at base, the flowers slender- 
pediceled, and the narrowly ovate or lanceolate sepals acuminate. 
At first thought one is surprised that those keen-eyed observers of 
our flora, Michaux and Pursh, did not point out the striking dissimi- 
larity of our plant and the true Arenaria peploides with which they 
must have had some experience in Europe; but apparently neither 
of them had much familiarity with the coastal sands of the north- 
eastern states and Canada. Michaux does not mention A. peploides, 
and Pursh knew it as an American plant only from a Labrador speci- 
men in the Banksian herbarium. In 1818 Nuttall listed A. peploides 
in his Genera,’ as growing “оп the sea-coast," and took up separately 
1Fl Bor.-Am. i. 102 (1830). 
1E ae Grrl, LT 176 (1888). 
3 Oakes's manuscript notes in Gray Herbarium, 
4Pursh, Fl. i. 317 (1814). 
5 Nutt. Gen, i. 290 (1818). 
