PHLOX. 271 



PHLOX, Phlox. 



Natural Order Jlotacece. Polemonia, Juss. A Genus 

 of the Pentandria Mo?iogy?iia Class. 



Come fortli 



In purple lights, till ev'ry hillock glows 

 As with the blushes of an evening sky. 



Akenside. 



These brilliant flowers are all peculiar to the New 

 World, excepting one species, which is indigenous 

 to the northern part of Asia; and whether this 

 one is the actual plant which the Greeks named 

 ^Xo^, Phlox, flame, on account of its bright ap- 

 pearance, cannot be proved, since Theophrastus has 

 not given a description to justify the assertion, and 

 Pliny only observes that the Greeks used a flower 

 in their garlands which they called Phlox. North 

 America has yielded us no less than fifteen different 

 species of these flaming plants, to which modern 

 nomenclators have given the name of Phlox, and 

 which we have presumed to place in symbolical 

 language as the emblem of unanimity, in allusion 

 to the united form of these flowers, whose clus- 

 tered corymbs form an umbel, and from the country 

 from whence we procured them. 



