NEW PHYTOItOGIST. 
^ ^ —— —— 
Vol. XIII, No. 3. March, 1914. 
[Published March 31st, 1914.] 
VARIABILITY IN STELLARIA GRAMINEA. 
By A. S. Horne, B.Sc., F.G.S., F.L.S. 
[With Two Figures in the Text.] 
rnHIS paper is concerned chiefly with variability in the flower of 
I Stellaria graminea studied in Surrey and mainly within the 
precincts of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Gardens, at Wisley; 
and, by the kindness of Dr. C. E. Moss, in the Fen near Abbot’s 
Repton, in Huntingdonshire. 
Stellaria graminea, at Wisley, inhabits the grassy verge of the 
common, frequently reaching a height of two feet or more amongst 
grass and gorse; other plants, in more open situations, are of 
shorter stature. The plant flourishes ideally in an uncultivated 
field within the Gardens, where thousands of the shorter plants 
grow amongst the herbage and taller ones climb and cling to the 
outskirts of the clumps of broom. The sub-soil of the field is of 
sand resembling that of the common hard by ; the drainage is 
therefore good and water does not accumulate during any part of 
the year, to render the ground swampy. 5. Dilleniana Monch (== 
S. palustris Retzius=S. glauca Withering) is entirely absent from 
this locality. In the Fen, however, both S. graminea and 5. Dillen¬ 
iana occur and occasionally grow in close proximity to one another. 
5. graminea inhabits all the approaches to the fen proper and the 
narrow footways that penetrate the tall fen-grasses ( Arnndo and 
Calamagrostis). S. Dilleniana inhabits the true fen—not extending 
into the outskirts—and may be found on the banks that confine the 
dank water-ways choked with various Potamogetons and other 
water-weeds, or under the shade of the fen-grasses. 
My attention was at first attracted by the fact that the flowers 
in some of the tufts at Wisley possessed a large corolla whilst, in other 
tufts, a smaller corolla was present. In order to determine whether 
