FLORA OF NOVA SCOTIA — LAWSON. 103 



name the plants. The most important function of a botanical 

 name is to denote its particular plant ; these two have been so 

 mixed up, that they can now be hardly used for that purpose 

 without explanation. 



Cerastium NUTANS, Rafinesque. On the railway track at 

 Windsor Junction, Halifax County. Several plants have been 

 brought to this place with gravel from King's County, used in 

 ballasting the railway track, but I noticed C. nutans long before 

 the railway was extended to King's County, and it is no doubt 

 indigenous. 



Cerastium arvense, Linn. On the trap cliffs at Blomidon, 

 the true indigenous form of the plant. Truro, in gravelly soil, 

 on the margins of the stream issuing- from the Victoria Park. 



Pictou, Macoun. Truro, in grass fields and on road sides ;. 

 Wimburn Hill, Dr. G. C. Campbell. 



Sagina procumbens, Linn. Not rare on roadside banks al)Out 

 Halifax and Bedford Basin ; between Twelve Mile House and 

 Upper Sackville, Halifax County ; Lucyfield, near St. John's 

 Parish Church, Sackville ; Dutch Village ; North West Arm, etc. 



Windsor, Hants, Dr. How. Very common at Pictou, A. H. 

 Mackay. Common all around Truro, Dr. G. C. Campbell. 



In Watson & Coulter's (sixth) edition of Gray's Manual, this 

 species is described as '" annual or perennial," p. 89. In Nova 

 Scotia it is a decided perennial, each plant forming a compact 

 tuft or cushion, with numerous short barren leafy, as well as long 

 fioriferous, shoots. *S. procumbens is thus very different in 

 habit from such annual species^ as S. apetala, in which leaf- 

 rosettes are scarcely formed, and all the shoots bear flowers. In 

 the West and South, S. procumbens may be less tufted and more 

 evanescent. Even the dandelion, which is such a persistent per- 

 ennial in the cold swamps of the far north, becomes almost a 

 biennial in the richer soils of Ontario, and in warm climates far- 

 ther south. 



Spergltla arvensis, Linn. Common Spurry. A European 

 agriciiltural plant and weed, thoroughly established, and looks 

 like a native. Lucyfield, Halifax County, abundant. 



