46 
CERASTIUM 
This forma differs from C. strictum L. in the following characters : — Laminae less rigid and wider ; inflorescence with more 
flowers ; petals broader. 
Calcareous and sandy places, Suffolk (cf. Bot. Exch. Club Brit. Is. Rep. for i88j , p. 169), Berkshire. 
C. arvense is locally abundant in the lowlands (to 200 m.) on dry sandy, gravelly, and calcareous 
grassy heaths, banks, roadsides, and fallow fields. From Cornwall, and Kent northwards to Sutherland- 
shire ; local in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; commonest in the east of England. 
Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, central Europe (ascending to 1600 m. 
in the Tyrol), Russia, southern Europe; northern Africa; Asia; America, from Labrador to 
Tierra del Fuego. 
2. CERASTIUM ALPINUM. Alpine Chickweed. Plates 44; 45 
Alsine myosotis lanuginosa alpina grandiflora seu auricula muris villosa flore amplo membranaceo Ray Syn. 
147 (1690); ed. 3, 349 (1724). 
C. alpinum L. Sp. PI. 438 (1753); Smith Eng. Bot. no. 472 (1798) excl. syn. Ray; FI. Brit. 500(1800)!, 
excl. syn. Ray; Syme Eng. Bot. ii, 84 (1864)!, excl. var. pubescens p. 85; Rouy et Foucaud FI. France iii, 204 
(1896); C. tomentosum Hudson FI. Angl. 176 (1768) excl. syn. Ray, non L. ; C. latifolium Lightfoot FI. Scot. 
242, t. 10 (1777) non L. nec Smith ; C. mutabile [subsp.] alpinum Grenier Mon. Cerast. 71 (1841). 
leones: — Smith Eng. Bot. t. 472; FI. Dan. t. 6; Reichenbach Icon, vi, t. 232, fig. 4976, as C. lanatum. 
Camb. Brit. FI. iii. Plate p.p. (a — h) Fertile shoots, (i) Seeds (two enlarged), (a — c) Edinburgh Botanic 
Garden (I. B. B.). ( d — i) Cambridge Botanic Garden, origin Ben Lawers, Perthshire (R. I. L.). 
Exsiccata : — Bourgeau (Pyr. Esp.), 214, as C. alpinum var. lanatum\ Don, 62, as C. latifolium ; Fellman, 
62, as C. alpinum var. lanatum ; FI. Austr.-Hung., 556, as C. lanatum. 
Perennial. Shoot (in the British form) covered with long woolly hairs. Laminae — lower ones 
ovate or obovate to elliptical ; upper ones broadly elliptical, obtuse. 
fnflorescence with 1 — 2 flowers, with a pair of bracts at the base, and 
the second branch with an additional pair. Bracts much smaller than 
the leaves, up to 5 mm. long, either wholly scarious or with a scarious 
margin. Flowers pentamerous, about 1*5 — 1'8 cm. in diameter, more 
campanulate than in C. arcticum ; June and July. Sepals elliptical, 
rather acute, with a scarious margin. Petals about twice as long as 
the sepals. Stigmas 5. Capsule narrowly cylindrical, nearly twice as long 
as the calyx, slightly curved. Seeds small (ro — 1*5 mm. long), brown, 
covered with rather prominent tubercles ; testa close-fitting. 
The British form is the one covered with long woolly hairs. Its synonymy is as 
follows: — C. alpinum var. lanatum Gaudin FI. Helv. iii, 247 (1828); Syme Eng. Bot. ii, 85 
(1864); C. lanatum Lamarck Encycl. i, 680 (1783). It occurs in Iceland, Scandinavia, 
France (the Pyrenees), central Europe, Russia, Spain, Bosnia, and Greenland. It is 
distinguished by long, soft, hairs on the shoot, and by the leaves usually shorter and 
broader than in the less hairy non-British form. 
Syme’s C. alpinum var. pubescens seems to be a mixture of C. alpinum x arcticum 
and C. alpinum x vulgatum. 
There are altogether four definite British Alpine forms of Cerastium, namely, C. 
alpinum , C. arcticum , C. vulgatum var. alpinum , and C. cerastio'ides. The first three of 
these, when growing together, may be expected to furnish hybrids ; and the resulting 
forms are often very puzzling. 
Local ; in damp, grassy Alpine slopes, rock-ledges, and especially 
on ddbris of mica-schist or granite ; Carnarvonshire, the Lake District, 
Dumfriesshire, and central and northern Scotland; ascending to 1300 m. 
in Perthshire, and descending to about 800 m. or (where washed down) 
to 460 m. in Aberdeenshire and 300 m. in Perthshire. 
Arctic and Alpine Europe (including the Faeroes and Iceland, and 
ascending to 2750m. in Switzerland) and Asia, eastwards to Japan; 
North America — Greenland and Labrador to Alaska and southwards to Arizona and California. 
C. alpinum x arcticum Giirke Plant. Eur. ii, 222 (1899); C. alpinum var. pubescens Syme Eng. 
Bot. ii, 85 (1864) partim ; C. alpinum x edmondstoni Murbeck in Bot. Not. 249 (1898) ; C. alpinum x nigrescens Druce 
in Bot. Exch. Club Brit. Rep. for 1910, ii, 498 (1911). 
Exsiccata: — Herb. Druce, 3682, 4714. 
