CERASTIUM ARVENSE. 



FIELD MOUSE-EAR CHICKWEED. 



NATURAL ORDER, CARVOPHYLLACE/E. 



Cerastium ARVENSE, Linnaeus. — Pubescent, somewhat crespitosc ; leaves linear-lanceolate, 

 acute, often longer than the internodes ; cyme on a long terminal peduncle, four-flowered; 

 petals more than twice longer than the calyx; capsule scarcely exceeding the sepals. 

 Flowers white, rather large. (Wood's Class-Book of Botany. See also Gray's Manual of 

 the Botany of the A'orthern United States, Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States, 

 and Brewer and Watson's Botany of California.) 



VERY traveller knows how pleasant it is to meet a friend 

 in a foreign country and far away from home. A similar 

 sensation is experienced by the botanist when he meets with an 

 old floral acquaintance in a strange land, or in some une.'ipected 

 ])lace. The flower acts like the well-known human face. Old 

 associations are recalled, old scenes come back to the memory, 

 and for the moment all else is forgotten in the recollection of 

 " home, sweet home." The writer of this, in the summer of 

 1 87 1, had just such an experience with the subject of the present 

 chapter. He had often admired the plant with its chaste flowers, 

 as it adorned the wooded and rocky banks of the Schuylkill, and 

 other places in the Atlantic States, where, in the lines of Bryant, 



these — 



" fair white blossoms of the wood 

 In groups beside the pathway stood," 



and the reader may therefore imagine the pleasure with which 

 the plant was hailed, when it was found one evening as the 

 writer and his little party were preparing to pitch their tent for 

 the night on their camping-ground in Bergen Park, Colorado, 



