2. C. arvénse, L. (Field Chickweed.) Perennial; stems ascending or erect, tufted, downy or nearly smooth, slender (4–8´ high), naked and few–several-flowered at the summit; leaves linear or narrowly lanceolate; petals obcordate, more than twice the length of the calyx; pods scarcely longer than the calyx.—Dry or rocky places. May–July. (Eu.)
Var. oblongifòlium, Holl. & Britt. Usually taller, pubescent; leaves narrowly or broadly oblong or oblong-lanceolate; pod about twice longer than the calyx. (C. oblongifolium, Torr.)—Rocky places, N. Y. to Minn., and southward.—Var. villòsum, Holl. & Britt. Similar but densely villous-pubescent, and the leaves lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate.—E. Penn.
10. SAGÌNA, L. Pearlwort.
Sepals 4 or 5. Petals 4 or 5, undivided, or often none. Stamens as many as the sepals, rarely twice as many. Styles as many as the sepals and alternate with them. Pod many-seeded, 4–5-valved to the base; valves opposite the sepals.—Little, matted herbs, with thread-like or awl-shaped leaves, no stipules, and small flowers terminating the stems or branches; in summer. (Name from sagina, fattening; previously applied to the spurry.)
[*] Parts of the flower in fours, rarely with some few in fives.
1. S. procúmbens, L. Annual or perennial, depressed or spreading on the ground, glabrous; leaves linear-thread-shaped; apex of the peduncle often hooked soon after flowering; petals shorter than the broadly ovate obtuse sepals, sometimes none.—Springy places and damp rocks, coast of Maine to Penn. (Eu.)
2. S. apétala, L. Annual, erect or ascending; leaves ciliate at base or glabrous; petals none or very small; peduncles always erect.—Dry soil, Mass. to Penn.; scarce, seemingly native? (Eu.)
[*][*] Parts of the flower in fives, the stamens not rarely 10.
3. S. decúmbens, Torr. & Gray. Annual, ascending; the peduncles and calyx with the margins of the upper leaves at first glandular-pubescent; leaves short, often bristly-tipped, not fascicled in the axils; peduncles slender; petals equalling or shorter than the calyx; pod oblong-ovate, nearly twice longer than the acutish sepals. (S. subulata, Man., not Wimm.)—E. Mass., to Ill., Mo., and southward.—Var. Smíthii, a slender form, apetalous, at least in the later flowers.—Near Philadelphia, in waste ground, and in sandy fields at Somers' Point, N. J., C. E. Smith. Seeds minutely roughened.
4. S. nodòsa, Fenzl. Perennial, tufted, glabrous, or glandular above; stems ascending (3–5´ high); lower leaves thread-form, the upper short and awl-shaped, with minute ones fascicled in their axils so that the branchlets appear knotty, petals much longer than the calyx.—Wet sandy soil, along the coast of Maine and N. H., also Lake Superior, and northward. (Eu.)