1919] | Fernald,— Alsinopsis 9 
Spergularia segetalis Don. The references under the Ist species, 
Alsine media, indicate no figure, but the 2d species, A. segetalis, goes 
back to “Alsine segetalis, gramineis foliis unum latus spectantibus. 
Vaill. paris. 8. t. 3. f. 3," which shows a beautifully clear illustration. 
By the American Code, therefore, the type of Alsine is A. segelalis. 
The definition of Alsine in the Genera Plantarum, ed. 5, 132 (1754) 
likewise indicates A. segetalis in the character “Cor. Petala quinque 
aequalia, calyce longiora," for in A. segetalis the petals are, as described 
by Rouy & Foucaud, “une fois plus longs que les sépales" ! while 
the petals of A: media are, as defined by Britton in his key to species, 
“shorter than the calyx.’ Incidentally, it is unfortunate for Dr. 
Britton's argument that A. media is the type of Alsine that he should 
have selected for his artist a flower of the latter which so beautifully 
shows 10 stamens (Ill. Fl. fig. 1752), for both in the Genera Plantarum 
and in the Species Plantarum the genus Alsine was placed in the 
Pentandria Trigynia and in the definition of the genus Linnaeus dis- 
tinctly said * Filamenta quinque." In A. media plants with 5 stamens 
do sometimes occur, but in A. segetalis this number is tolerably con- 
stant. 
It should be sufficiently clear, then, that Hiern, Britten & Rendle, 
Schinz & Thellung, and Briquet are correct in making Alsine segetalis 
the type of the genus, and that in not so doing the professed followers 
of the American Code are violating Canon 15 b of that code. 
III. THE EARLIER NAMES FOR ALSINOPSIS. 
Very recently Small has rechristened Alsine Wahlenb., not L., 
as Alsinopsis? transferring to it many eastern American species, 
Alsinopsis groenlandica, A. glabra, A. stricta, A. caroliniana, etc. but 
designating no type except “ Alsine Wahl., not L.,” and more recently 
others, content to follow Small without looking into the validity of 
his work or into the literature which he has so obviously ignored, have 
given us the new combinations Alsinopsis verna (L.) Cockerell, based 
on Arenaria verna L., Alsinopsis propinqua (Richardson) Rydberg, 
based on Arenaria propinqua Richardson, Alsinopsis sajanensis 
1 Rouy & Foucaud, Fl. de France, iii, 301 (1896). 
? Britton in Britton & Brown, Ill. Fl. ed. 2, ii. 42 (1913). 
3 Small, Fl. S. E. U. S. 419, 1330 (1903). 
