302 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



rescence a loosely forked cymose panicle: petals narrowly obovate, 

 nearly twice the length of the somewhat rigid acuminate prominently 

 3-ribbed sepals : capsule about equalling or exceeding the calyx. — 

 Fl. i. 274; Ell. Sk. i. 521 ; Hook, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 99, t. 33 (including 

 both var. a, a weak boreal few-flowered form with erect leaves, and 

 var. /3, the common form with spreading leaves) ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. 

 i. 179, var. ft ; Britton, Mem. Torr. Club, ii. 37. ? A. setacea, 

 Muhl. Ind. Fl. Lane. 1G9. A. Michauxii, Hook. f. Arc. PI. 287, 

 322. Alsine Michauxii, Fenzl, Verbr. Alsin. 18; Regel, Ost-Sib. i. 

 351, t. 8, f. 1-5. — Rocky and gravelly soil, Vermont to S. Carolina, 

 westward to Minnesota. 



Var. Texana. More rigid, stems fewer, 3-7 inches high, strongly 

 enlarged at the nodes : leaves very short, conspicuously connate ; the 

 fascicled ones but 1-2 lines long : flowers in a small rather dense 

 cyme : sepals almost cartilaginous, very strongly 3-nerved, appear- 

 ing attenuate through the infolding of their margins. — ? A. stricta, 

 var. a, Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 179. — Rocky Hills, Texas; along the 

 Canadian River, Gordon, April, 1848; Bigelow, August, 1853; 

 Dallas, Hall, July, 1872: Comanche Peak, Reverrhon. 1881; Arkan- 

 sas, Leavenworth; False Washita, Ind. Ter., Palmer ; Kansas, Norton, 

 Smith. Owing to its definite and limited geographic range this variety 

 may, as Dr. Britton suggests, prove worthy of specific rank. The 

 characters, however, are not very definite, and a specimen from Potosi, 

 Mo. (F. Peck) exactly connects it with the type. While the descrip- 

 tion of Torrey and Gray's var. a, cited above, ill accords with the 

 present plant and rather suggests that these authors intended their 

 var. a to be equivalent to the var. a of Hooker, as their var. (3 was of 

 his var. f3, yet in the Columbia Herbarium there are specimens of the 

 southwestern plant labelled in Torrey's hand as var. a. If the Texan 

 plant was the var. a of Torrey and Gray, it need scarcely be said that 

 it could not have been the typical form of Michaux's species, as it was 

 doubtless intended to be. 



***** Perennials, closely matted or tufted, 1-6 inches in height: sepals 

 acuminate, but not strongly nerved, except in A. venta. 



A. verna, L. Rather closely tufted : stems numerous, slender, 

 ascending or erect, smooth, 1-5 inches high, 1 to 3 (or more) flowered ; 

 the upper internodes commonly considerably exceeding the leaves : 

 leaves linear-subulate, flat, rather strongly 3-nerved, usually erect 

 and never squarrose : peduncles filiform: sepals ovate-oblong, acutish 

 to acuminate, strongly 3-nerved, 1|— If lines long, exceeding the obo- 

 vate or oblanceolate obtusish petals : capsule somewhat surpassing the 



