1914] Fernald,— Variations of Stellaria borealis 145 
upper leaves much reduced to scarious-margined bracts. These two 
tendencies of the species, though sometimes difficult to make out, are 
for the most part fairly pronounced, but a more significant character 
is found in the length of the mature calyx and capsule. 
In the Northeast, from Labrador to Pennsylvania and the Great 
Lakes, and locally to the Rocky Mountains, Stellaria borealis, whether 
with only few axillary peduncles or with terminal many-flowered 
cymes has the mature calyx almost without exception 2-3.5 (rarely 4) 
mm. long and the mature (but unopened) capsule 3-5 (rarely 5.5) mm. 
long. In the extreme West, however, from the Behring Sea region to 
California, the mature calyx of both the plant with few axillary 
peduncles and the one with the terminal cymes, is 4-5.5 mm. long, 
the mature capsule 5-8 mm. long. These measurements indicate, 
then, that in the size of the calyx and the capsule the species breaks 
into actual geographic trends. "The only notable exception, and that 
only apparently an exception, is the occurrence of plants with the 
large calyx and capsule on the lower St. Lawrence, from Bie to Anti- 
costi, a region in which three-fourths of the vascular plants show 
identities or close affinities with the flora of the Northwest. 
A glabrous plant with short ovate to elliptic-lanceolate leaves 
ordinarily less than 2.5 em. long occurs from Greenland and Labrador 
to New England and New York, with us oftenest in alpine or boreal 
districts, and from Alaska to the mountains of Oregon, in Oregon and 
Washington being regarded as an alpine or subalpine species. This 
is the plant described by Bongard as Stellaria calycantha ' and treated 
by some authors as identical with S. borealis, by others as a variety 
of it and by recent American authors as a distinct species of the 
Northwest. 
Another variant, resembling Stellaria calycantha but with the 
young branches covered with dense crisp pubescence, is found on the 
mountains from Washington to northern California and eastward to 
Montana. This is the plant described by Howell as Alsine Simcoei,? 
which seems to be a pubescent extreme parallel with pubescent 
variants found in many other species of the Alsineae. 
In the main these six variations of Stellaria borealis are well-marked 
and should be recognized in intensive studies of our flora; but, though 
some of them have been set off as species, they all show too many 
1 Bongard, Vég. Sitch. 127 (1832). 
2 Howell, Fl. N. W. Am. i. 83 (1897). 
