20 Rhodora [JANUARY 
the Kennebec. Eastward, on Mt. Desert Island as well as at Halifax, 
Nova Scotia, the plant in stature and habit is perplexingly transitional 
to the boreal 4. groenlandica, being usually more tufted and lower 
than in A. glabra but with the very bushy habit of the latter and with 
pedicels intermediate in length, and petals shorter than in most 
arctic-alpine plants. Similarly, on some of the secondary mountains 
of Maine and New Hampshire (White Cap, Rumford, Maine, Mt. 
Hope, Coós Co., New Hampshire, ete.) the plant is so transitional 
between the arctic-àlpine and the Alleghenian plant that specimens 
might pass for either; while the plant from the summit of Roan Mt., 
North Carolina, has the habit of 4. groenlandica but the longer leaves 
and slightly shorter petals of A. glabra. 
In brief, there seem to be no absolute lines by which 4. groenlandica 
and 4. glabra can be distinguished, although the plants of arctic- 
alpine and those of Alleghenian range have certain tendencies of 
habit and foliage which in extreme colonies are well marked, though 
in transitional areas these tendencies break down. At best, then, 
A. glabra is a geographic variety of 4. groenlandica. "The characters 
and ranges of the two varieties are stated below. 
A. GROENLANDICA (Retz.) Spreng. Syst. ii. 402 (1825). Stellaria 
groenlandica Retz. Fl. Scand. ed. 2, 107 (1795).  Alsine groenlandica 
Gray, Man. ed. 2, 58 (1856). Alsinopsis groenlandica Small, Fl. 
S. E. U. S. 420, 1330 (1903).— Tufted, forming dense mats of short 
leafy basal shoots 1-13 em. broad: stems few to very numerous, 
filiform, depressed, decumbent or suberect, simple to freely forking 
2-10 (rarely -15) em. high, 1-30-flowered: leaves linear, obtuse, soft, 
often flaccid, or the basal narrowly oblanceolate; the basal 3-15 mm. 
long; the uppermost cauline (below the first forking) 2-9 mm. long: 
pedicels erect or spreading becoming 0.6-2.3 em. long: calyx 3-5 mm. 
long, campanulate; the ascending essentially nerveless oblong to 
oval scarious-margined sepals obtuse: petals broadly to narrowly 
obovate, usually retuse, white, 6-10 mm. long (sometimes smaller 
or wanting): capsule globose-ovoid to slender-conical, slightly ex- 
serted: seeds reddish-brown, 0.7-0.8 mm. long.— Greenland and 
Labrador, south to Table-top Mt., Gaspé Co., Quebec, the higher 
mountains of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York, and 
in uncharacteristic form to the coast of southern Nova Scotia and 
eastern Maine. 
Var. glabra (Michx.), n. comb. A. glabra Michx. Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 
274 (1803). Alsine glabra Gray, Man. ed. 2, 58 (1856). Alsinopsis 
glabra Small, Fl. S. E. U. S. 420, 1330 (1903).— Similar: less tufted, 
usually with few if any short leafy basal shoots: stems solitary-few, 
