Phlox

floks, a favorite garden flower. The name is Greek, meaning flame. It has reference to the fine show of color made by the phlox in full bloom. The phlox is related to the gilia and to "Jacob's ladder." There are thirty species, all natives of North America. One species is found in Siberia as well, and there is possibly one other species native to Chile. Our phloxes, wild and tame, may be separated into annuals and biennials. The annuals of the garden--white, pink, salmon, purple, blue, and variegated--almost endless in variety, are descended from a wild phlox of Texas. The first specimens were taken home to London in 1835 by a collector named Drummond. The newness of the plant and the delicate wildness of the salver-shaped flowers created quite a furore among gardeners. The botanists gave the species the name of Drummond's phlox. Seeds may be sown in the open in early spring. The flowers begin to open in early summer and afford flat topped masses of exquisite color till frost cuts them down. Our perennial garden phloxes are improved varieties of the wood phloxes, the wild "Sweet William" of the eastern United States. Phlox pilosa is the characteristic phlox of the Mississippi Valley. It gives beauty to prairies from Hudson Bay to Texas and Florida. The so-called moss pink is a matted ground phlox. Several species of dwarf phloxes grow in the Rocky Mountain region. One species spreads in mat form to the size of a bushel basket--all from a single permanent root growing in a dry rock crevice apparently incapable of sustaining life.