382 



CRITICAL NOTES ON SOME SPECIES OF CERASTIUM. 



By Frederic N. Williams, F.L.S. 



(Continued from p. 344.) 



14. C. AMBiGUUM Fisch. in litt. ex Ser. in DC. Prodr. i. 419. 

 This plant has never been described. Fischer appears to have sent 

 specimens to Seringe, who referred them to C. strictum var. com- 

 mune. In Herb. Kew. there is a specimen apparently authenticated 

 imder this name proposed by Fischer, which was collected by 

 Turczaninow in 1830. It is labelled "in siccis ad Angaram " : 

 which I presume to refer to the River Angara, m the Siberian 

 province of Irkutzk. It consists of a single flowering stem 15 centim. 

 long, with basal leaves attached. From the number of leaves at- 

 tached to the base of this single stem, it may be inferred that the 

 plant is more than usually caespitose. The stem is almost glabrous, 

 and the leaves are provided with a few short hairs of a non- 

 glandular character. The dichasium has six flowers somewhat 

 smaller than those in typical specimens of C. arvense, supported on 

 pedicels rather shorter than the calyx. There are no capsules on 

 the specimen, but, as the ovary is very short, probably the capsule 

 would be short as in C. arvense. The brief diagnosis which follows 

 serves to indicate the characters which distinguish it from normal 

 forms of the species : — 



C. ARVENSE var. AMBIGUUM Wllliams. — Plusminus csespitosum 

 subglabratum vel parce puberulum, eglandulosum, clarescenti 

 viridalum, 15 centim. Folia basilaria approximata, caulina re 

 mota. Dichasium 6-florum ; flores breviter pedicellati ; pedicelli 

 floriferi calyce pauUum breviores, fructiferi baud visi (longiores?) 

 bracteffi lanceolato-lineares. Ovarium ovale. 



Hab. Siberia ; in dry places near the River Angara, in the 

 province of Irkutzk, long. 103° (^Turczaninow). 



15. C. AMBLYODONTUM Colenso, in Trans. New Zeal. Instit. xxvii. 

 384 (1894). So named from the structure of the capsular teeth. 

 Not very different from the same botanist's C. tnincatidiim. Judging 

 from the specimens in Herb. Kew., it seems to belong to the C. pu- 

 miliim group of species. 



16. C. AMPLExicAULE Sims, Bot. Mag. t. 1789 (1816) = C. da- 

 vuricum, Fisch. (1815). — Sims's plant is not referred to by Ledebour 

 (Fl. Ross, i.) ; but both authors cite the same figure in J. G. 

 Gmelin's Fl. Sibirica, iv. 148, t. 62, f. 1 (1769), where it is described 

 under the name of "Alsine Cerastium foliis connatis." The leaves 

 are connate at the base rather than amplexicaul, as the figure shows 

 distinctly, so that the name of C. connatum for the plant proposed 

 by S. G-. Gmelin in the second volume of his Fieise durch Russland 

 (1774-1783) is a better one, and is the name attached to the speci- 

 mens in Willdenow's herbarium, no. 9055. C. amplexicaule was 

 raised in Lambert's garden at Boyton, in Wiltshire, from seeds sent 

 by Fischer from the Botanic Garden at Gorenki, near Moscow. 

 Biras in the course of his description says that in Gmelin's figure 



