igoi] Holm — Allies of Stellarl\ Medium. 39 



that was followed by several botanists, among them Elias 

 Fries, ^ who recorded it from Sweden and Denmark, and Babing- 

 ton,^ who reported both this and S. pallida from the British 

 Isles. There are not a few authors, however, who have felt more 

 inclined to consider these plants as representing a single species, 

 "6'. media'''' with the others as merely varieties. Thus FenzP ** 

 enumerates three varieties, deca?idm, oligandra and apetala, 

 besides four others, which are less characteristic ; a similar classi- 

 fication is given by Langi, ^ ' who distinguishes between var. vul- 

 garis with 3-5 stamens, var. neglecta with 10 stamens and var. 

 apctala without petals, or as suggested by DoelP - var. decandra 

 and var. apetala. 



Stellaria media is, thus, with European botanists the plant 

 with 3-7 stamens, S. neglecta the one with 10 stamens and S. 

 apetala with 2-5 stamens, but with no petals. Of these the 

 typical form has been described as being very frequent in 

 North-America, while none of the others have been cited. It 

 would, however, be desirable to know a little more about this 

 plant as it is represented in this country, and we thought there- 

 fore, that some more information might be obtained by presenting 

 this brief notice about the European plant with its allies, whether 

 these be considered as varieties or species. And there is good 

 reason for supposing that the species, S. media, in this country is 

 actually an aggregate of several well defined forms or even 

 species, which may naturally be looked for in the cold temperate 

 resfions or farther south. So far the writer has succeeded in 

 detecting Weihe's 6*. neglecta in the vicinity of Washington, 

 D.C., where it grew in shady places in deciduous forests, more- 

 over, some specimens in Dr. E. L. Greene's herbarium, collected 

 in California proved to be this species, besides that the herbarium 

 of the Geological Survey Department of Canada, contains several 



* Fries, Elias. Corpus florarum provinciarum Sueciae I. Flora Scanica. 

 1835, P- 88. 



'^ Babington, C. C. Manual of British Botany, 1874, p. 57. 



^o Fenzl in " Ledebour's Flora Rossica." 1841, Vol. I, p. 377. 



^^ Lange, Job. Haandbog iden Danske Flora, 1864, p. 342. 



^- DceII, I. Ch. Flora des Grossherzogthums Baden, \'ol. 3, 1862, 

 p. 1224. 



