1913] Fernald,— Polygonum martimum 69 
sands of the Atlantic from northeastern Massachusetts to Georgia, 
P. Fowleri of somewhat heavier and damper soils has not, so far as 
the writer can determine, been detected in western Newfoundland, 
on the Magdalen Islands, nor on Prince Edward Island but occurs 
on the outer or eastern coast of Newfoundland and follows the main- 
land shores from Labrador and the lower St. Lawrence around the 
coast of New Brunswick and the coasts of Nova Scotia, to the islands 
between the lower Kennebec and Casco Bay — perhaps 120 miles 
by the coast from the northern limit of the third member of the group. 
'The plant which has long passed as Polygonum maritimum on the 
coast of the Atlantic United States, the whitish plant of sea-sands 
from Massachusetts southward, is a prostrate annual which by the 
earlier students of our flora was taken to be a purely American repre- 
sentative of the European P. maritimum L. To be sure, Linnaeus had 
included the American plant with his frutescent Mediterranean spe- 
cies, P. maritimum, saying: “Habitat Monspelii, in Italia, Virginia. 
h "s but by Pursh it was treated, with a very inaccurate statement 
of its characters, as an American variety, his P. marinum, 8. roseum, 
said to be a “small prostrate evergreen [!] plant, with white or rose- 
coloured flowers."? Nuttall, however, better understood the situa- 
tion when he treated the plant of our Atlantic sands as a new species, 
P. glaucum, and said: “Has. On the sandy beach of the sea, around 
Egg-Harbour, New Jersey; possesses much the aspect of P. aviculare, 
but produces flowers which are conspicuous and elegant, and occurs 
in situations which pronounce it native; not naturalized as aviculare, 
the seed is also remarkably distinct. A. [P.] maritimum of Europe has 
never yet been found on the American sea-coast."? And Torrey also 
evinced a close knowledge of the plant when, taking up Nuttall’s 
P. glaucum in 1824, he said: “It can hardly be P. maritimum of Lin- 
naeus, a native of the shores of the Mediterranean, for that species 
is frutescent and evergreen, while our plant appears to be decidedly 
annual.’”4 
Nevertheless, in spite of Linnaeus’s statement that his Mediter- 
' ranean Polygonum maritimum was frustescent and the emphasis laid 
upon this character by Torrey, Nuttall's annual P. glaucum was soon 
1 L. Sp. Pl. 361 (1753). 
? Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i. 269 (1814). 
3 Nutt. Gen. i. 255 (1818). 
‘Torr. Fl. N. & M. U. S. i. 401 (1824). 
