PHLOX. 



that smell like thoso of Lilium auratum. This only wants room in a 

 light rich loam, to form wide carpets and drifts of pure colour, through 

 which in the spring could have come Daffodils, and in the later season, 

 There are various forms of this, including an albino ; Ph. Lap- 

 hami is no more than a rather neater variation of the type divaricate; 

 with slightly larger stars of a slightly richer colour, which lose some 

 of the type's charm of clarity when they deepen into the form called 

 " Violet Queen." And G. Arends has lately raised a whole hybrid 

 race between these and the Paniculatas, in order to obtain the immense 

 flower-trusses, rather loosened, much earlier in the season, and of 

 laxer dwarfer habit. These are generically called Ph.xArendsii, but 

 their garden-names can all be studied in catalogues, they being florist- 

 flowers as much as the varieties of Ph. paniculate. 



Ph. dolichantha has a singular beauty of its own. It is a loosely 

 erect species of 10 inches or a foot, set with pairs of smoothish eye- 

 lashed leaves, long and sword-like, with distinct nerves, about a couple 

 of inches in length. Then, from the upper axils of these, at the top of 

 the shoots, emerges from each a minute footstalk, on which unfolds 

 a noble flower, rose-pink or purple, large and comely, but with a 

 tube of quite ridiculous length, 2 or 3 inches, so that the blossoms 

 with which the loose clump is bespattered have the look of rich tropical 

 oddities dropped there by accident, and making an effect of exotic 

 magnificence. From the San Bernardino Mountains in California, 

 where also lives Ph. austromontena, so that the two lovely birds could 

 be bagged with one trowel. 



Ph. Douglasii is the most abused and crowded name in the race. 

 The type is a dense tuft, either downy or nearly glabrous, with stems 

 of 6 inches or less, fairly thickly-set with narrow little leaves, not quite 

 so stiff as in the varieties of Ph. caespitosa. The blooms either sit 

 tight in the shoots, or have short footstalks ; in colour they are of 

 lovely lilac as a rule, and their lobes are perfectly rounded, not cloven 

 or notched at all. It has, however, countless varieties in the course 

 of its range through the Eastern and Western Rockies from Montana 

 and Utah. One, Ph. D. scleranthifolia, has white stars, and the leaves 

 stiffly upsticking ; and Ph. diffusa and Ph. longifolia are developments 

 that explain themselves. In gardens the genuine plant is not common, 

 and seems to be confused in catalogues with Ph. pilosa, a species 

 utterly distinct, of looser, taller, straggly, spindly growth, and flowers 

 in clusters here and there, instead of being like Ph. Douglasii, in every 

 form, a neat mossy tuffet, besprent with beautiful blossoms of pink all 

 over. 



Ph. Jloridana stands quite close to Ph. glaberrima ; not a thing 



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