146 Rhodora [AuausT 
transitional tendencies to warrant their treatment as more than 
varieties. 
The earliest publication of the species seems to have been by 
Michaux, who named the form with linear-lanceolate leaves and 
cymose small flowers Spergulastrum lanceolatum.!  Michaux's plant, 
said to grow "in borealibus Americae septentrionalis," was actually 
collected, as shown by Michaux’s herbarium, on the Saguenay River 
and Lake Mistassini. By Persoon? the Michaux plant was trans- 
ferred to Micropetalon and by Torrey ? to Stellaria, but owing to the 
existence of an earlier valid species, Stellaria lanceolata Poir.* from the 
Straits of Magellan, Michaux's name cannot be retained for the 
species under Stellaria. 
In 1812 Ledebour published Arenaria calycantha 5 from Siberia and 
in 1832 Bongard, describing from Sitka the plant with short ovate 
leaves already referred to, called it Stellaria calycantha,® basing his 
name upon Ledebour's Arenaria calycantha. Subsequent authors 
for the most part treated Stellaria calycantha as identical with S. 
borealis, but Fries in 1842 accorded it varietal rank as S. borealis, var. 
calycantha.” In 1883, however, S. calycantha was revived as a species 
by Professor John Macoun who said, “Specimens. . . .are altogether 
unlike any form of S. borealis we possess. The character, ‘leaves 
ovate-lanceolate, connate, the margin minutely ciliate with white 
hairs, much shorter than the internodes,’ separates it from that spe- 
cies.” * And in 1897, in the Synoptical Flora, Robinson, following 
Macoun, took up S. calycantha as seemingly a distinct species sepa- 
rated by " Leaves broader, ovate or broadly oblong, seldom an inch 
long."? If the extreme western material alone were under considera- 
tion S. calycantha could be easily kept apart from the plants with 
linear-lanceolate leaves, for S. calycantha has small flowers, the mature 
calyx 2-4 mm. long, the capsule 3-4.5 mm. long; while, as already 
pointed out, the extreme western plants passing as S. borealis have 
larger flowers, the calyx 4-5.5 mm., the capsule 5-8 mm. long. In the 
Rocky Mountains and the Northeast, however, numerous transitions 
1 Michx. Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 275 (1803). 
? Pers. Syn. i. 509 (1805). 
3 'ITorr. Fl. i. 453. (1824). 
1 Poir. Encyc. vii. 416 (1806). 
5 Ledeb. Mém. Acad. Sc. Pétersb. v. 534 (1812). 
* Bong. Vég. Sitch. 127 (1832). 
7 Fries, Novit. Fl. Suec. Mant. iii. 196 (1842). 
* Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. i. 75 (1883). 
? Robinson in Gray, Syn. Fl. i. 235 (1897). 
