SEPTEMBER. 257 



PHLOXES. 



[Plate 155.] 



In many classes of flowers we are almost entirely indebted to 

 our continental neighbours for new varieties ; the climate 

 is so much more favourable to the ripening of the seed, that 

 they are able to effect that which we find impossible. All the 

 new Roses, without exception, are French ; for though some 

 one has said that Devoniensis was an English raised Eose, it 

 is a mistake ; the variety was raised in France, bought by 

 Messrs. Lucombe, Pince, & Co., and by them given its name. 

 Hyacinths are all Dutchmen, Asters principally German or 

 French, Verbenas and Chrysanthemums largely so, and the 

 varieties of Phlox which have for the last few years been intro- 

 duced, are " furriners " also — much to the discomfort of our 

 gardeners, whom the names confound very much. It would 

 really be a much more sensible plan, when things are intro- 

 duced by any English grower for him to have a rechristening ; 

 for what can a plain John Bull make of such names as 

 " Souvenir de la Heine dAngleterre," or " Souvenir de l'Expo- 

 sition ?" Why, our old man thinks he's no end of a scholar 

 because he can talk of " Chany Austens" and " Cranthins" (a 

 free way of rendering China Asters and Chrysanthemums) ; 

 imagine, then, his attempting such names as these. If the 

 great growers, or rather introducers of French productions 

 were to do this, they would greatly add to the comfort of many 

 a gardener, and, we may add, to many a master, too, whose ears 

 are horribly jarred and his risibility often excited by the 

 marvellous attempts his man makes at getting to windward of 

 these French words. This is a digression, and yet we must 

 make another. What a curious thing it is that the odd bizarre 

 coloured things seem all to be French ; fancy Dahlias, striped 

 Verbenas, spotted and odd coloured Pelargoniums, are all of 

 French extraction ; they are a very " bizarre " people, but this 

 cannot affect theirhybridising ; but we suppose they are fond of 

 such things, and so try to obtain, by a system of crossing 

 likely to produce it, these odd and striking things. Be the 

 reason what it may, the fact is there, and when in any class of 

 flower you see something peculiar in its markings, you may 

 give a tolerably shrewd guess that it is French. 



But " revenons a nous moutons," the " moutons " in this 

 case being Phloxes. If any of the readers of the Florist are 

 possessed of its back volumes, they may see something of the 

 rapid strides that this flower has made, by referring to the 

 volumes for 1848 and 1854. In the former year Coelestis and 



VOL. XII., no. cxli. s 



