DECANDRIA— PENTAGYNIA. Cerastium. 333 



specimen^ is very correct and characteristic. Of the distinctions 

 between this species and the last there is no question ; norcan 

 any good botanist who has really compared them together, all 

 theory apart, have a doubt remaining. There is more uncer- 

 tainty about our tetrandrum and the Spanish pentandrum, which 

 it most resembles in size, habit, colour, and calyx 5 but C, pentan- 

 drum has .') -cleft flowers with small, acute, scarcely c\ow en, petals, 

 and a remarkably bread membranous margin to the cahjx. The 

 Jlower-stidks moreover, even when in fruit, do not exceed the 

 " caJyx in length. It is true that the flowers of C. tetrandrum by 

 culture now and then become o -cleft and pentandrous ; but its 

 taper-pointed calyx is alone sufficient to keep it distinct from 

 the semidecandrum. 



5. C. arvcnse. Field Chick-weed. 

 Leaves linear-lanceolate, bluntish; fringed at the base. 

 Petals twice the lenolh of the calyx ; capsule shorter. 



C. arvense. Unn. Sp. PL 628. mild. v. 2. 813. Fl. Br. 499. 

 Engl. Bot. V.2. t.93. Curl.Lond.fasc. 6. t.29. Hook. Scot. 143. 

 Fl. Dan. t. 626. 



Myosotis n. 889. Hall. Hist. v. 1 . 389. 



M. arvensis, polygoni folio. Tourn. Inst. 24.>. Vaill. Par. 141. 

 ^.30./. 5. 



M. arvensis subhirsuta, ttore majore. Tourn. Inst. 245. Vaill. 

 Par.\4\.t.30.f.4. 



Caryophyllus arvensis hirsutus, flore majore. Bauh. Pin. 2\0. 

 Rail Syn. 348. 



C. Holostius. Ger.Em.^Oly.f. Lob.Ic.AAG.f. 



Auricula maris pulchro flore albo. Bauh. Hist. v. 3. p. 2. 360./. 



In fields, and on banks and hillocks, on a gravelly or chalky soil. 



Perennial. May — August. 



Root creeping. Stems numerous, slightly branched, leafy, round, 

 covered with fine deflexed haii-s ; recumbent and matted at the 

 base ; then ascending 5 from 4 inches to a foot in length. 

 Leaves lanceolate, about an inch long, various in breadth, 

 bluntlv pointed, for the most i)art densely hairy j sometimes 

 smooth, but always fringed about the lower part. Patiicles ter- 

 minal, of a few large brilliant-wliite y/ou'c;\v, whose pc/rt/i- are 

 inversely heart-shaped, and veiny, twice lus long as the hairy 

 membranous-bordered rrt///.r. Germen globose. Caps, cylindri- 

 cal, slender, shorter than the calyx, with 10 oblong teeth, some- 

 times splitting down into ."> or 10 narrow valves. 



G. C. (dpimim. Alpine Mouse-car Chickwced. 

 Leaves elliptical, naked, t)r clothed with long hairs. Pa- 



nicle forked, bractcated, of few flowers. Capsule oblong, 



recurved. 



