58 AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



The habit of the plant and certain important characters of 

 the flower, such for example as crownless corolla lend favor to that 

 author's view. The following is Rafinesque's diagnosis: 



" Evactoma Raf. diflf. Silene et Cucubalus cal. infl. camp. 

 5 fid. membranosis petalis 5 flabellatis, multifidis non coronatis, 

 stylis 3, caps 3 loc. 3 valvis, fal. verticill. fl.subracem. This deserves 

 to be a G. by habit and characters, the name means well cut star." 



Evactoma stellata Raf. Cucub. et Sil do. O. N. America." 

 Silene stellata (Linn.) Ait, 1. c. 

 Cticuhalus stellatus Linn. 1. c. 



The type of the genus is with scarcely any doubt the glabrous 

 membranous leaved plant of Virginia and farther South. The 

 plant of the west and of farther North generally is scabrous pu- 

 bescent especially on the inflorescence, stem, and leaves. The 

 petals, are more deeply and unequally cleft and the narrow lobes 

 more numerous. This latter character I have found difficult to 

 determine to my utter satisfaction as the flow^ers of the herbarium 

 specimens are, when not wanting, in rather poor condition. I 

 have examined the specimens in the U. S. National Herbarium, 

 but live material should be compared to obtain quite satisfactory 

 results. I have therefore deemed it advisable to lay not too much 

 stress on this character for the present and consider the northern 

 and western plant as only a variety of the other. Though the 

 specimens of the latter are more numerous in herbaria, I do not 

 hesitate to designate the southeastern plant as the typical E. 

 stellata} Most authors before Linnaeus are silent as to the pu- 

 bescence of the plant and that author himself does not mention 

 it. John Ray, however, one of the first if not the ver>^ first un- 

 mistakeably to describe the plant designates it as "Lychnidem 

 Caryophyllum Virginianum gentianae foliis glabris quatuor ex 

 singulis geniculis caulem amplexantibus, flore amplo fimbriate. 

 Ray, Hist. p. 1895 (1688). From this it is evident that the southern 

 plant was first known in Europe, and found in the botanical 

 gardens there. I need not hesitate then in describing the western 

 and more northern plant as 



Evactoma stellata var. scabrella var. nov. 



Silene stellata var. scabrella. 



' Bot. Mag. p. 1 107, vol. 14. P. Miller, Card. Diet. Ed. 7, (1759) 

 Morison, R. Hist. 2 p. 577. Banister's Catalogue in Ray 2, p. 1927. J. Ray, 

 3 p. 246. Petiver. Sic. 30. Clay 7 no. 245 etc. 



