
20 Rhodora [JANUARY 
the Kennebec. Eastward, on Mt. Desert Island as well as at Halifax, 
Nova Scotia, the plant in stature and habit is perplexingly transitional 
to the boreal A. groenlandica, being usually more tufted and lower 
than in A. glabra but with the very bushy habit of the latter and with 
pedicels intermediate in length, and petals shorter than in most 
arctic-alpine plants. Similarly, on some of the secondary mountains 
of Maine and New Hampshire (White Cap, Rumford, Maine, Mt. 
Hope, Coés Co., New Hampshire, etc.) the plant is so transitional 
between the arctic-alpine and the Alleghenian plant that specimens 
might pass for either; while the plant from the summit of Roan Mt.,_ 
North Carolina, has the habit of A. groenlandica but the longer leaves 
and slightly shorter petals of A. glabra. 
In brief, there seem to be no absolute lines by which A. groenlandica 
and A. glabra can be distinguished, although the plants of aretic~ 
alpine and those of Alleghenian range have certain tendencies of 
habit and foliage which in extreme colonies are well marked, though 
in transitional areas these tendencies break down. At best, then, 
A. glabra is a geographic variety of A. groenlandica. The characters 
and ranges of the two varieties are stated below. 
numerous, 
filiform, depressed, aan or suberect, simple to ‘i ses 
2-10 (rarely ae cm. high, 1-30-flowered: leaves linear, obtuse, Sort, 
pedicels erect or eae becoming 0.6-2.3 em. long: calyx 3-5 a 
long, campanulate; the ascending essentially nerveless oblong 
oval scarious-margined sepals obtuse: petals broadly rb Pigs? 
obovate, usually retuse, white, 6-10 mm. long (sometimes yee 
or wanting): capsule globose-ovoid to slender-conical, aia 2 
serted: seeds reddish-brown, 0.7-0.8 mm. long.— Green lai higher 
Labrador, south to Table-top Mt., Gaspé Co., Quebec, the ic, and 
mountains of Maine, New Hampshir re, Vermont and New Yor eee 
in a form to the coast of southern Nova Scotia 
mm Main or.-Am. 1. 
ge ciatak: (Michx.), n. comb. A. glabra Michx. Fl. Bor 
274 Bode Alsine glabra Gray, Man. ed. 2, 58 (1856). 
mal Fl. 5. KE. 

