CARYOPHYLLACE.E. (PINK FAMILY.) 91 



seeded. Low, usually tufted herbs, with sessile exstipulate leaves and small 

 white flowers. (Name from arena, sand, in which many of the species grow.) 

 The following sections are hy many botanists taken for genera, as they were 

 in the former edition. 



1. ARENARIA proper. Pod splitting wholly or part-way down into 3 or at 

 length into 6 valves : seeds many, naked at the hilum. 



1. A. 8ERPYLLIF6LIA, L. (THYME-LEAVED SAND WORT.) Diffusely 



branched, roughish (2' -6' high); leaves ovate, acute, small; cymes leafy; 

 sepals lanceolate, pointed, 3 - 5-nerved, about as long as the petals and the 6- 

 toothed pod. A low annual, in sandy waste places. June -Aug. ^Nat. 

 from Eu.) 

 2. ALSlNE, (Tourn.) Wahl. Pod splitting to the base into 3 entire valves: 



seeds many, usually rough, naked at the hilum : flowers solitary and terminal or 



cymose: root in our species perennial. 



* Leaves small, rigid, awl-shaped or bristle-shaped. 



2. A. squarrbsa, Michx. (PINE-BARREN S.) Densely tufted from a 

 deep perpendicular root; leaves closely imbricated, but spreading; awl-shaped, 

 short, channelled; branches naked and minutely glandular above, several-flow- 

 ered; sepals obtuse, ovate, shorter than the pod. (Alsine, ed. 2.) In pure 

 sand, S. New York, New Jersey, and southward along the coast. May - July. 



3. A. Stricta, Michx. Erect, or usually diffusely spreading from a small 

 root, smooth ; leaves slender, between awl-shaped and bristle-form, with many others 

 clustered in the axils ; cyme diffuse, naked, many-flowered ; sepals pointed, 3- 

 ribbed, ovate, as long as the pod. (Alsine Michauxii, Fend.) Rocks and dry 

 wooded banks, Vermont to Wisconsin and Kentucky. July. The specific 

 name is a bad one, as there is nothing strict about the plant. 



* * Leaves soft and herbaceous, filiform-linear : petals retuse or notched. 



4. A. patula, Michx. Diffusely branched from the slender root ; stems 

 filiform (6'- 10' long) ; branches of the cyme diverging; peduncles long; sepals 

 lanceolate, acuminate, 3 -5-nerved. (Alsine, ed. 2.) Cliffs of Kentucky River, 

 mountains of Western Virginia, and southward. 



5. A. Grcenlandica, Spreng. (MOUNTAIN S.) Densely tufted from 

 slender roots, smooth; flowering stems filiform, erect (2' -4' high), few-flow- 

 ered; sepals oblong, obtuse, nerveless. (Stellaria Groenlandica, Retz. Alsine, ed. 

 2.) Summit of the Shawangunk, Catskill, and Adirondack Mountains, New 

 York, of all the higher mountains of New England, and northward ; alpine or 

 subalpine. At Bath, Maine, on river-banks near the sea. June - Aug. 

 Leaves and peduncles 3" -6" long; flowers large in proportion. 



A. GLABRA, Michx., of the mountain-tops in Carolina, may occur on those of 

 Virginia, and is perhaps a large form of the above. 



3. MQEHRfNGIA, L. Parts of the flower sometimes in fours: pod as in 1, 

 but the young ovary 3-celled: seeds rather few, smooth and with a thickish ap- 

 pendage (strophiole) at the hilum: perennials, with flaccid broadish leaves. 



6. A. lateriflbra, L. Sparingly branched, erect, minutely pubescent; 

 leaves oval or oblong obtuse ('-!' long) ; peduncles 2- (rarely 3 -4-) flowered, 



