56 
STELLARIA 
( / 3 ) subvar. nivale Druce in Moss Camb. Brit. FI iii, 56; Stellaria cerastioides var. nivale Babington Man. 
47 (1843)! 
leones : — Cf. FI. Dan. t. 92. 
Exsiccata : — Herb. Druce, 947. 
Shoot hairy. 
Very rare ; on the Cairngorm group in Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, and Inverness-shire. Not definitely 
recorded elsewhere. 
Very local, near alpine springs and margins of rills, both in damp grassy and stony places ; 
on the mountains of Breadalbane and Rannoch in Perthshire, in Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, 
Inverness-shire, western Ross-shire and Sutherlandshire, ascending to 1300 metres on Ben Nevis. 
Faeroes, Iceland, Scandinavia, mountains of central Europe as in France, Switzerland (ascending 
to 2920 m.), and Austria, mountains of southern Europe; Asia; North America including Greenland. 
Genus 9. Stellaria 
Stellaria L. Sp. PI. 421 (1753) et Gen - pl - ed. 5, 
Map 23. Distribution of S. aquatica in Great Britain 
193 0754 ) emend.; Bentham and Hooker Gen. PI. i, 
149(1862); Pax in Engler und Prantl Pflanzenfam. 
iii, pt. 1 b, 79 (1889). [ Alsine Tournefort loc. cit., 
partim ;] L. loc. cit., partim. 
Perennial or annual herbs. Shoot usually 
weak and straggling, usually glabrous or almost 
so, more rarely pubescent. Laminae lanceolate 
to ovate. Inflorescence rarely solitary. Flowers 
monoclinous. Sepals n. Petals n, white, more 
or less deeply 2-cleft, rarely absent. Stamens 
n + n or n, or rarely 3; anthers subglobose. 
Stigmas n and antipetalous (in S. aquatica) or 
n — 2, rarely n— 1 or n — 3. Capsule subglobose 
or broadly oval, dehiscing by twice as many 
teeth as there are stigmas. Seeds 00 , more or 
less tuberculate. Embryo almost annular. 
About 100 species ; cosmopolitan. 
Sections of Stellaria 
Section I. Malachium (see below). 
Sepals free to the base. Stamens 10. Stigmas 
5, alternisepalous. Capsules dehiscing by 10 
teeth. 
Section II. Eu-Stellaria (p. 57). Sepals 
free or a little united at the base. Stamens 
3—10, hypogynous or perigynous. Stigmas 
3 — 4, usually 3. Capsules dehiscing by 6, 
rarely 8, teeth. 
Section I. MALACHIUM 
Malachium [Fries FI. Halland. 77 (1817 — 8) as a genus, nomen;] Bentham and Hooker Gen. PI. i, 149 
(1862); [ Cerastium L. loc. cit., in sensu stricto, quod descr. non aliorum ;] Myosoton Moench Meth. PI. 235 (1794) 
as a genus ; Pax op. cit. 79, as a subgenus. 
This section is a connecting link between the very closely allied genera Cerastium and Stellaria. Cf. also Dichodon (p. 55). 
For characters, see above. Only British species: — 5 ". aquatica. 
