PHLOX SUBULATA. 



MOSS-PINK. 



NATURAL ORDER, POLEMONIACETR. 



Phlox subulata, Linnaeus. — Stems prostrate, twelve or more inches long, with numerous 

 assurgent branches two to four inches high ; leaves subulate, linear, rigid, about half an 

 inch long, cuspidate, crowded, with axillary clusters of smaller ones ; corymbs three to 

 six flowered ; corolla pink purple, with a dark-purple centre, the tube about half an inch 

 long, a little curved ; flowers sometimes white. (Darlington's Flora Cestrica. See also 

 Gray's Manual of Botany and Chapman's Flora of the Southern States.) 



HE Phlox is an American genus of plants, but was one 

 of the earliest to obtain an introduction to the botanists 

 of Europe. Plukenet, a writer before the time of Linn^us, 

 published a work in London, in 1 691, in which he describes it, 

 making it out to be a near relation to the Lychnis, for which 

 reason he called it Lychnidea. The Lychnis belongs to the Pink 

 family, or, as we say, Caryophyllacccc, and there is much outward 

 resemblance of the Phlox to it, especially in the seed-vessel; 

 but on examination, we see that, while the Pinks have numerous 

 seeds in a cell, the Phloxes have but a single seed. Besides 

 this, the Pinks have a corolla made up of several distinct petals, 

 while the Phloxes have but a single or monopetalous corolla, 

 although divided into five deep segments. When Linnceus 

 remodelled botany, he generally retained the old designations 

 if they did not conflict with the requirements of his system, but 

 Lynchiiidea was one of the names which had to give way. In 

 the first place, the name implied a close relationship to Lychnis, 

 which the plant did not have, and thus would mislead. Its 

 form, moreover, was that of an adjective rather than of a sub- 

 stantive, and the system of Linnaeus called for an adjective in 



