PHLOX. 



venerable in the same candid fluff. And yet another more attractive 

 Phlomis is P. fruticosa, forming a bush about 2 or 3 feet high, with 

 dense rings of clear-golden flowers up its flower-spikes. 



Phlox. — That we should sit contented with even Vivid and G. F. 

 Wilson among the Phloxes makes one ashamed, as one goes through 

 the long list of exquisite and longed-for alpines that are still vainly 

 offering themselves to us on the desert mountains of America. There- 

 fore we will go straight through the list, that we may know our possi- 

 bilities and recognise them in the future, as one by one they come to 

 hand. Nor will we despise to mention the taller species, though more 

 briefly, if only that we may know what Flames we do not want. So 

 now for the complete perennial roll-call of this race, incomparably 

 the most important that America has yet evolved for the benefit 

 of the rock-garden, and one of which it has an almost undisputed 

 monopoly. 



Ph. alyssifolia makes more or less prostrate mats, with thick, flat, 

 oblong-narrow foliage, each smooth leaf having a hard white edge, 

 and a white vein below. The flowers are scattered and large, varying 

 from pale purple to white. 



Ph. amabilis is a small woolly-stemmed mass or bushlet of 3 inches 

 high, with narrow, but not intensely narrow, leaves, hairy on both 

 faces, and running to a short, sharp point. The big flowers are white 

 or pink, produced in clusters from the end of every stem. This species, 

 then, is the first of the type that we already worship under the many- 

 headed name of Ph. subulata. Therefore, we may here mention that 

 light and open loam in the sun causes all these cushion-Flames to 

 blossom like the rose and burn as fiery as the day. Their one prime 

 need is perfect drainage, and as much light as was loved by Little Nell. 

 They must never be overshadowed, never be clogged in winter. But, 

 this being said, there is no more advice to give, or caution to suggest. 

 And all these species can be layered with sand worked down among 

 the mats, or struck more simply in the form of cuttings. 



Ph. amoena, Sims, is Ph. procumbens, A. Gray (probably because it 

 is starkly erect). It has simple, downy, upstanding stems of about 

 a foot high in a neat bush, and throwing no offsets; these are set with 

 quite narrow downy leaves, and end in many leafy clustered heads of 

 pinky-lilac blossoms, smooth in the throat, but otherwise, like the 

 whole plant, very much suggesting Ph. pilosa. (Atlantic North 

 America.) This group requires, to make it happy and permanent, a 

 rather more specially light soil than the last, and a rather more 

 especial place in the sun ; for they are inclined to be frail and straggly 

 in growth as in character, not having the glorious amplitude of the 



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