148 Rhodora [August 
This plant generally occurs without petals, in which state I discov- 
ered it on the White Mountains in July, 1816. I have since received it 
several times from the same place but always in the apetalous state, until 
last year, when Messrs. Greene and Little found it there in August with 
complete flowers." ! 
S. borealis, in this typical short-leaved form, appears to be a cir- 
cumpolar plant, occurring outside North America, in Scandinavia, 
Russia, Siberia and Kamtschatka. But so far as the writer can 
determine the other American variations of the species are endemic. 
The common lowland plant of the East, with elongate linear- 
lanceolate leaves and well-developed cyme, Spergulastrum lanceolatum 
Michaux, has, along with the larger-flowered cymose-paniculate 
plant of the Northwest, been confused with Fries’s Stellaria alpestris 
and with Fenzl’s S. borealis, B. corollina; but neither of these names 
can be safely applied to either of the North American plants. 
S. alpestris, as first published by Fries in 1832, was based upon two 
plants previously published as varieties of S. uliginosa by Hartmann 
and by Laestadius. These two plants were treated by Fries as S. 
alpestris “a. foliis omnibus conformibus” and S. alpestris “B. foliis ad 
axillas caulis in bracteas suppressis, unde caulis apice paniculatus” ? 
Later, however, in 1842, Fries? reduced his former S. alpestris a to S. 
borealis, var. corollina Fenzl, while an apetalous state which Fries in the 
meantime had distributed as S. alpestris, var. aliflora* was reduced to 
S. borealis, var. calycantha (Bong.) Fries. At the same time Fries 
restricted his S. alpestris to the Scandinavian plant with paniculate 
inflorescence, his earlier S. alpestris B which he had subsequently 
distributed as S. alpestris, var. paniculata,’ and redefined the plant as 
a species distinct from S. borealis. Subsequent European authors 
have treated this emended S. alpestris, sometimes as a distinct species, 
sometimes as a variety of S. Friesiana Fenzl, and again as a hybrid 
of S. borealis and S. Friesiana. Authentic material of the plant from 
Laestadius and from Andersson shows it to be unlike either of the 
American plants with which it has been identified and there seems to 
be no reason why the name alpestris should be longer used for either 
of our plants with cymose inflorescences. 
1 Bigelow, Fl. Bost. ed. 2, 182, 183 (1824). 
? Fries, Nov. Fl. Suec. Mant. i. 10 (1832). 
3 Fries, 1. c. iii. 194—196 (1842). 
4 Fries, Herb. Norm. III. no. 31. 
5 Fries, l. c. VII. no. 34. 
