caryophyllace^e. (fink family.) 91 



seeded. — Low, usually tufted herbs, with sessile exstipulate leaves and small 

 white flowers. (Name from arena, sand, in which many of the species grow.) 

 — - The following - sections are by many botanists taken for genera, as they were 

 in the former edition. 



§ 1. AREN ARIA proper. Pod splitting wholly or part-way down into 3 or at 

 length into 6 valves : seeds many, naked at the hitum. 

 1. A. serpyllifolia, L. (Thyme-leaved Sandwort.) Diffusely 

 branched, roughish (2' -6' high); leaves ovate, acute, small; cymes leafy; 

 sepals lanceolate, pointed, 3 - 5-nerved, about as long as the petals and the 6- 

 toothed pod. — A low annual, in sandy waste places. June -Aug. (Nat. 

 from Eu.) 

 §2. ALSINE, (Tourn.) Wahl. Pod splitting to the base into 3 entire valves: 



seeds many, usually rough, naked at the hilum : flowers solitary and terminal or 



cymose: root in our species perennial. 



* Leaves small, rigid, awl-shaped or bristle-shaped. 



2. A. squarrdsa, Michx. (Pine-barren S.) Densely tufted from a 

 deep perpendicular root; haves closdy imbricated, but spreading, awl-shaped, 

 short, channelled; branches naked and minutely glandular above, several-flow- 

 ered: sepals obtuse, ovate, shorter than the pod. (Alsine, ed. 2.) — In pure 

 sand, S. New York, New Jersey, and southward along the coast May - July. 



3. A. Stricta, Michx. Erect, or usually diffusely spreading from a small 

 roo*:, smooth ; leaves slender, between awl-shaped and bristle-form, with many others 

 clustered in the axils ; cyme diffuse, naked, many-flowered ; sepals pointed, 3- 

 ribbed, ovate, as long as the pod. (Alsine Michauxii, Fenzl.) — Rocks and dry 

 wooded banks, Vermont to Wisconsin and Kentucky. July. — The specific 

 name is a bad one, as there is nothing strict about the plant. 



* * Leaves soft and herbaceous, filiform-linear : petals retuse or notched. 



4. A. patula, Michx. Diffusely branched from the slender root ; stems 

 filiform (6'- 10' long) ; branches of the cyme diverging: peduncles long; sepals 

 lanceolate, acuminate, 3 -5-nerved. (Alsine, ed. 2.) — Cliffs of Kentucky River, 

 mountains of Western Virginia, and southward. 



5. A. Grcenlandica, Spreng. (Mountain S.) Densely tufted from 

 slender roots, smooth; flowering stems filiform, erect (2' -4' high), few-flow- 

 ered; sepals oblong, obtuse, nerveless. (Stellaria Grcenlandica, Retz. Alsine, ed. 

 2.) — Summit of the Shawangunk, Catskill, and Adirondack Mountains, New 

 Fork, of all the higher mountains of New England, and northward ; alpine or 

 subalpine. At Bath, Maine, on river-banks near the sea. June - Aug. — 

 Leaves and. peduncles 3" -6'' long; flowers large in proportion. 



A. glabra, Michx., of the mountain-tops in Carolina, may occur on those of 

 Virginia, and is perhaps a large form of the above. 



§ 3. MCEHRlNGIA, L. Parts of the flower sometimes in fours: pod as in § 1, 

 but the young ovary 3 -celled : seeds rather few, smooth and with a thiclcish ap~ 

 pendage (strophiole) at the hilum: perennials, with flaccid broadish leaves. 



6. A. laterifidra, L. Sparingly branched, erect, minutely pubescent; 

 leaves oval or oblong obtuse (%' - 1' long) ; peduncles 2- (rarely 3-4-) flowered, 



