PHLOX REPTANS. 



CRAWLING PHLOX. 



NATURAL ORDER, POLEMONIACE^. 



Phlox reptans, Michaux. — Stem erect, with procumbent runners at the base bearing round- 

 ish-obovate and rather fleshy subsessile leaves; upper stem-leaves ovate-lanceolate ; corymb 

 few-flowered; stem four to six or eight inches high; leaves about an inch long, more 

 or less pilose and ciliate, — the lower ones spatulate-obovate, tapering to short margined 

 petioles; corolla deep purplish-red, — the tube about an inch long, a little curved. (Dar- 

 lington's Flora Cestrica. See also Gray's Mamtal of the Botany of the Northern United 

 States, Wood's Class-Book of Botany, and Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States.) 



OST of the Phloxes of the Eastern United States were 

 well known to the botanists of the earlier part of the 

 present century, and the species to which this chapter is devoted 

 was one of their latest discoveries. It was first noticed in the 

 mountains of North Carolina by Michaux, who described it, and 

 gave it its present name, Phlox reptans. Shortly afterwards the 

 same species was also found in Georgia by John Frazer, an 

 English collector, and a representation of the plant appeared in 

 the " Botanical Magazine," where it was described as Phlox sto- 

 lonifera. Frazer also sent seeds to England, from which flower- 

 ing plants were produced about 1800. 



This incident is well calculated to show the origin of synonyms, 

 which are so often a source of annoyance and difficulty to the 

 student. It must necessarily happen now and then that two 

 people discover and describe the same thing simultaneously, or 

 very nearly so, without having any knowledge of one another's 

 work, or that some one describes a plant as new which is after- 

 wards found to be different in no essential particular from one 

 alreadv described. In such cases the rule, that the oldest name 



