ROBINSON. — ALSINEA. 309 
the slender stems: flowers terminal, large for the genus, 4 lines in 
diameter when expanded. — Verbr. Alsin. t. 18, & Ledeb. Fl. Ross. 
1. 840. Spergula nodosa, L. Spec. 440. — Moist sandy soil. Coast 
of Maine south to Cape Ann, J. Robinson ; also on both shores of 
Lake Superior and northward to Hudson Bay. 
13. SPERGULARIA, Pers. (Name, a derivative of Sper- 
gula.) Annuals or perennials, usuall y of maritime and saline habitat, 
with narrowly linear, often flesby leaves. A genus of moderate size 
but difficult, through the natural variability of certain species, the incon- 
stancy of characters (such as the/form of the seeds) which elsewhere 
are most trustworthy, and finally through an unfortunate complication 
in the synonymy, arising both from the most diverse views as to the 
number and proper limitation of the species and from the differences 
in the choice of the generic name. Space does not here permit any 
complete discussion of the last point. It may, however, be said that 
the name Spergularia is the only one which has ever attained a wide 
use, having been employed in such excellent popular manuals as Hooker 
& Bentham’s Handb. Brit. F]., Hooker’s Fi. Brit. Isl., Garcke’s Fl. 
Deutsch., Gray’s Man., eds. 1-5, Cosson & Germain’s Synop. Analyt., 
etc. Beside this matter of popular usage of the past, there is at 
present the best. authority for selecting this name, since it is the one 
retained by the Kew botanists, and is advocated in the Berlin recom- 
mendations. On the other hand, the more radical reformers of nomen- 
clature have attained no unanimity in regard to the proper name for 
the genus; Professors Baillon, Greene, and Britton adopting Tissa, 
Dr. Kuntze Buda, and Mr. N. E. Brown Corion, while Prof. Pax, who 
in his Monograph of the Caryophyllacee in Engler & Prantl’s Nat. 
Pflanzenf, used Tissa, in a later publication has returned to Spergu- 
laria. — Syn, i. 504; Gray, Gen. ii. 27, t. 108; Benth. & Hook. 
Gen. i. 152, Arenaria, L. Gen. n. 374 in part. Corton, Mitchell, 
Act. Phys. Med. Acad. Nat. Cur. viii. App. 218, fide Britton in Brit- 
ten’s Journ. of Bot. xxix. 303; N. E. Brown, Suppl. Eng. Bot. 
Tissa, Adans. Fam. des Pl. ii. 507; Baillon, Hist. des Pl. ix. 1165 
Britton, Bull. Torr. Club, xvi. 125; Greene, Fl. Francis. 126, & 
Man. Bay Reg. 35. Buda, Adans. |. c. i. 507; Dumort. Fl. Belg. 110; 
Wats. & Coulter in Gray, Man. ed. 6,89. Lepigonum, Fries, F). Hall. 
‘6; Kindberg, Monogr. ; Wats. Bibl. Ind. 103. 
96 Procumbent, or decumbent, slender, scarcely at all fleshy, growing near or 
€ven on the seacoast, but not truly saline: flowers small or of medium size: 
Petals magenta : stipules lanceolate, elongated and conspicuous. 
S. rubra, Prest. Usually annual, smoothish below, finely glan- 
dular-pubescent above : stems spreading, wiry: leaves flat above, nar- — 
