294 FLORA HISTORICA. 



PHLOX. Phlox. 



Natural Order Rotacece. Polemonia, Juss : a Genus 

 of the Pentandria Monogynia Class. 



' come forth 



In purple lights, till ev ry hillock glows 

 As with the blushes of an evening sky." 



Akenstde. 



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 

 <l>Xo|, Phlox, flame, on account of its bright ap- 

 pearance cannot be proved, since Theophrastus 

 has not given a description to justify the asser- 

 tion, 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 clustered corymbs form an 



