(2) F. N. WILLIAMS. EUROPEAN VARIETIES OF SILENE INFLATA. 403 
carlilagineo-marginata longe mucronala. Bracteæ scariosæ. Flores sub 
anthesi nutantes, eliam alares jam sub anthesi longe pedicellati, in 
cymam subcorymbosam dispositi. Calyeis dentes obtusi. Semina minulim 
granulata nec tuberculata, dorso faciebusque leviter convexa, plerumque 
paullum numerosiora. 
S. inflata extends to every part of Europe, finding its northern limitin 
lat. 70°, at Alten in the amt of Tromsö, Norwegian Lappland, a district 
remarkable for its rich vegetation (see Baedeker’s Guide to Norway and 
Sweden, ed. 8, 1903, p. 258). 
All the European forms of S. inflata may be grouped in two series, 
1. those in which the whole plant is glabrous, 2. those in which the stem 
and leaves are more or less thickly covered with short curled hairs. 
Each of these two series may be subdivided into three (forming six 
varieties). 1. leaves long and narrow, linear, linear-lanceolate, lanceolate, 
and acute, 2. leaves long and broad, elliptic-lanceolate, obovate-lanceo- 
late, obovate-oblong, and acuminate, 3. leaves short and broad, obovate- 
lanceolate. elliptic-obovate. broadly obovate or sometimes suborbicular, 
with the middle leaves even subcordate at the base and apiculate at the 
tip, the others mucronate, or all mucronale. 
The difficulty in the examination of a large number of examples of 
all forms has been in sorling and sifting the described plants, elimina- 
ting the redundant and irrelevant characters, and distributing most of 
the forms which they represent among the synonyms, which. as might 
be expected, tend io increase the more closely the descriptions are 
applied to the specimens which exhibit an greater or less divergence 
from the common form. This difficulty has been increased in cases where 
the lendency to over-discrimination on the part of the collector in exami- 
nation of specimens has not been supplemented by comparison of exam- 
ples from different localities. In the grouping of forms proposed below, 
only those synonyms are included which result from the comparison of 
plants. Factilious changes of name made for merely literary reasons, 
being devoid of botanical interest, and of no scientific importance, are 
ignored and omitted, a legacy of the perennial insistence of irrational 
and pedantic claims of priority in nomenclature, claims which when 
unduly asserted encumber systematic work with an incubus as inert as 
il is useiess. 
A. Formæ glabræ. 
Tota planta glabra. 
Var. 1. angustifolia Cand. Fl. Franc. IV, 747 (1805). 
Var. 2. latifolia Reichb. Fl. Germ. excurs. 823 (1832) : — f. communis 
albiflora glauca. 
Lusus carneiflora Le Grand (var.) in Bull. Soc. Bot. France XVI, 386 
(1869). 
Lusus rubriflora Cand. (var.) 1. c. (1805). 
f: lælevirens. 
Var. 3. alpina Mert. et Koch in Rehl. Deutsch. Flora, ed. 3, III, 236 
(1831). 
f. rupicola. 
