TRbooora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 22. November, 1920. No. 263. 
STUDIES OF SOME BOREAL AMERICAN CERASTIUMS 
OF THE SECTION ORTHODON. 
M. L. FERNALD and K. M. WIEGAND. 
IN attempting to make out the exact identities of our Newfound- 
land and Labrador collections of Cerastium we have found it neces- 
sary to study closely the perennial species of northern range and in 
so doing have drawn up a key to the boreal American species of the 
section Orthodon, the plants which have passed in America under the 
composite species, C. alpinum L., C. vulgatum L. and C. arvense L. 
Our conclusions from the study of C. alpinum, C. vulgatum, and 
their allies are somewhat unlike those in other recent American 
publications and they are here recorded as the best we are able to 
reach with our present understanding of the group. In this work 
we have had the advantage of studying, besides the material of the 
Gray Herbarium and of the New England Botanical Club, the col- 
lections of the Geological Survey of Canada kindly loaned us by the 
late J. M. Macoun and those of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences 
placed at our disposal by Mr. Bayard Long. 
Key ro BOREAL AMERICAN SPECIES OF SECTION ORTHODON. 
a. Bracts herbaceous or only the uppermost slightly 
scarious-margined b. 
b. Seeds small, 0.6-1(rarely -1.3) mm. in diameter 
& 
c. Pubescence, at least of the basal tufts, long 
and more or less entangled especially at 
the tips of the leaves, or even lanate; plant 
