Strand and Dune Flora of the Pacific Coast 151 



western Canada and three or four into northern Mexico (Stand- 

 ley, 1909). Standley (1918) recognizes 28 species. Among these 

 A. lati folia and /4. maritima stand out as distinct units.The group 

 JJjnbellatae includes the coastal species listed above and four in- 

 terior species. These latter and the remaining members of the 

 genus are almost without exception inhabitants of desert and 

 semidesert regions. Standley remarks (1909) : "Most if not all the 

 species seem, to be in a variable or mutating state. They are 

 rather numerous and most of them are confined to compara- 

 tively small areas!' 



Honckenya peploides (L.) Ehrh. [Arenaria peploides L.; Am- 

 modenia peploides (L.) Rupr.], figures 3^, ^a, is stricdy a strand 

 plant. It is closely associated with Elymus arenarius, but for the 

 most part prefers the open beach outside the heavy growth of 

 the grass. On the Pacific coast of North America its range ex- 

 tends from Alaska southward to Oregon (Coos Bay) . 



The species is probably circumpolar, and its distribution is 

 closely similar to that of Elymus. It inhabits the coasts of north- 

 western Europe, Nova Zembla, Spitzbergen, Iceland, Green- 

 land, the American Arctic Archipelago, the entire coast of 

 Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. In arctic Siberia it is reported 

 from the mouth of the Yenisei River (Hulten, 1927-30), and may 

 occur generally along that coast ("arctic Siberia" : Holm, 1922) . 

 It is common on the Atlantic coast of North America southward 

 to Cape Henry, Virginia, and on the Pacific coast of Asia to 

 Korea and Japan. 



Several varieties have been described, the most important be- 

 ing var. diffusa Hornem., Greenland and arctic America; var. 

 robusta Fernald, Atlantic coast of North America from Quebec 

 to Virginia; and var. major Hook., coasts of the northern Pacific 

 Ocean (Fernald, 1909; Hulten, 1927-30). 



