112 Rhodora [JUNE 
the problematical Holostewm succulentum of Linnaeus,’ saying of it 
“Probably nothing more than Arenaria peploides, which grows on 
the sea-coast of New-Jersey, as this HTolosteum cannot now be found.” 
In 1824, Jacob Bigelow published a good account of our plant (as А. 
peploides) from sandy beaches “ particularly at Plumb island, near 
Newburyport where it forms large crowded tufts resembling islets;” ? 
and in the same year Torrey‘ described it clearly from New Jersey, 
Long Island, and Massachusetts, likewise as A. peploides. In 1836 
Rafinesque, treating this section of Arenaria as a genus, Adenarium, 
considered it as having two species: : 
“1, A. [denarium] peploides, Raf. Arenaria, do. L. Suffruticose, 
leaves fleshy ovate acute subserrate.— Europe, Seashore, seen dry. 
*2. A. Maritimum Raf. Holosteum succulentum L. Arenaria 
peploides of Amer. botanists. Herbaceous dichotome, leaves fleshy 
ovate obtuse entire petals obovate — Atlantic shores of N. America 
from New England to New Jersey, in sand, flowers white, vernal, 
terminal and in forks. Seen alive. Nuttal refers to this, the Ameri- 
can Holosteum of L. who must have mistaken the glands for trifid 
petals, but he says leaves elliptic. Figures Autikon. Ie. n. sp.” 
There is no doubt that Rafinesque had our common representative 
of Arenaria peploides; but his reference to it (following Nuttall) of 
Holosteum succulentum L. was unfortunate, for there is strong evidence 
that the latter plant, which was based by Linnaeus on Colden’s de- 
scription of Alsine foliis ellipticis succulentis, could not have been an 
Arenaria.’ So far as a search of literature has shown the disposition 
of our coastal fleshy Arenaria by Nuttall, Bigelow, and Torrey has 
since passed unchallenged, except by Rafinesque. ‘That it is clearly 
different from the little tufted plant of Europe with its small cyme of 
flowers, small capsule, and more lustrous seed, there can be no question ; 
but in view of its close similarity on the one hand to the more northern 
A. peploides, var. diffusa, on the other to the Pacific coast var. major, 
it is evidently to be considered a pronounced geographic tendency or 
1L. Sp. i. 88 (1753). 
? Nutt. Gen. i. 89 (1818). 
з Bigel. Fl. Bost. ed. 2, 181 (1824). 
4 Torr. Fl. N. and Mid. U. S. 453 (1824). 
5 Raf. New Fl. pt. 1, 62 (1836). 
6 In Colden's original description (Pl. Cold. Noveb. 86, no. 9) the “petala quinque, 
calyce minora, ad unguem bifida" indicates, as Torrey has already suggested (Fl. №, 
and Mid. U. S. 159) “that this long lost species is nothing more than STELLARIA media, 
in which the flowers are frequently triandrous, and the leaves a little fleshy.” 
