ORITIOAL NOTES ON SOME SPECIES OF CERASTIUM. 475 
caulina semiamplexicaulia glabra margine ciliato-scabra lete 
viridia. Dichotomiew rami maxime elongati patentissime bifariam 
pilosi; pedicelli tenuiores, fructiferi patentes interdum suberecti 
parcius pubescentes. Calyx glaber nitidus, sepal cuminata 
enervia margine vix membranacea. Petala angustius obcordata. 
Capsula calyce paullo longior nec duplo. 
111. C. uxoneatum Pursh, Fl, Amer. Sept. i. 821 (1814); 
Meehan, in Proc. Acad. Nat. ‘Sci. Philadelphia, 1898, 18. The 
label on the original spe ~~ — d by a Mr. Lewis reads: 
‘Plains of Columbia, April 22, 1806.’’ The following is a tran- 
script of the original description :—*C. hirsutum ; foliis linearibus 
internodiis longioribus divaricatis, pedunculis ipeaeat bon elongatis 
2-3-chotomis, bracteis oppositis ovatis, petalis emarginatis calyce 
acuto duplo longioribus, capsulis subglobosis; perenne.” Clark 
] by 
Mr. Thomas Meehan, of Philadelphia. He says: ‘‘ Modern col- 
lators give this as a synonym of C. arvense, but sa the gg 
8 ecimen now in hand, it s eems to be a good species. It is, 
long narrow leaves, very lea nodes with short in ernodes, are 
characters which it does not thai with any forms o e arvense in 
our herbarium.”” I am afraid that these characters are scarcely 
distinctive enough to be of specific value in the absence of variation 
of floral structure, though they ged constitute the specimens what 
might be considered a variety or state due to immediate cecological 
conditions. Beyond that, at een without a eriical examination 
of the specimens, one would no ah prepar As Willkomm 
says of the usual forms of C. Laeiete eae constantes vix 
distingui possunt: in inet subalpinis et alpinis Shr minus 
condensata, pauci- et grandiflora evadit.” The characters men- 
ioned by Mr. Mechan seem t fit v very well specimens named 
C. arvense var. angustifolium Pg in Ledeb. FI. Rossica, i. 418, a 
variety which is not uncommo n the United States. Pursh’s 
plant is not referred to by Mr. B. L. Robinson in his review of the 
Pecan species of Oahantieih but he says that broad-leaved 
and w-leaved specimens are forms strikingly different in their 
diene: but rather freely intergrading and often difficult to dis- 
tinguish, and in the latter the nei leaves are much fascicled, 
and attenuate below towards the 
112. C. exonearum Vahl herb., in Herb. Mus. Paris., ex Gren. 
Monogr. Cerast. 839. These specimens are to be referred to C. 
et though the stem is more branched, and the 2 
mewhat more loosely disposed on longer peduncles. The root i 
certaiuly annual, otherwise it would be better to eater the mpectils 
to C. triviale. Grenier says that he has seen similar specimens, 
elnging up among lucerne, in fields near Besangon 
113. C. Enpresstanum Prolongo, ex hires & Tange, Bes fi. 
Hisp. iii. 687 (1878); Colmeiro, Enum. pl. Hisp. Lusit. i. 448 
(1885), syn.; Jacks. Ind. Kew. i. 484 (1868) * Giirke, Pl. atop; 
li. 228 (1899 ), syn. On these nbrhirhertsh ae collected by Endress in 
the Pyrenees in September, 1829, Gay founded his C. Pyrenaicum, 
