PHLOX. 



concluding in clusters of some half a dozen pink blooms. It has a 

 narrow-leaved form, Ph. I. linearifolia, and ye1 another, Ph. I. humilis, 



whose charm is amply foreshadowed in the name, even had it not so 

 struck other observers as to make them give the neat, rosy-flowered 

 mass specific rank as Ph. speciosa. 



Ph. maculate stands very close to Ph. paniculate, but has dark 

 spots on the stem, yet the same typical magenta-pink little blossoms 

 in long clusters, and with a strong scent. 



Ph. multiflora is in the neighbourhood of Ph. alyssifolia, a depressed 

 tuft of flattened leaves, with a large number of flowers on short foot- 

 stalks, starry in outline. 



Ph. nana. — A most variable species from North Mexico, but never by 

 any chance a dwarf, attaining as a rule about a foot of height, with 

 stems either glabrous or fluffed with glands, beset with pairs of long, 

 wry narrow pointed leaves with a conspicuous nerve. Each stem 

 concludes in one, or usually two, large and handsome flowers, in out- 

 line suggesting a well-built Linum's, and in colour of almost every tone 

 in the race ; with the varieties, Ph. n. albo-rosea, Ph. n. lutea, Ph. n. pur- 

 purea, Ph. n. ensifolia, Ph. n. glabella, Ph. n. triovulata (tall and grace- 

 ful), and, finally, the one exception which may be held to prove the 

 preposterous name — Ph. n. depressa, a beautiful downy-white dwarf- 

 form, from some 6000 feet up on Chihuahua. 



Ph. Nelsoni, Brand (Ph. triovulata, Nelson, in part), is an erect 

 grower of a foot or so, with the lower leaves in pairs, smooth, and gradu- 

 ally drawing to a point at either end, while the upper ones are alternate, 

 and inclined to be a little downy. The flowers are carried in few- 

 blossomed loose sprays at the tops of the stems (which only branch 

 sparingly, if at all), on footstalks that are woolly and without any 

 glands. Their lobes are half again as long as their tube, and the style 

 much shorter than the calyx. (Rucher Valley in South-East Arizona.) 



Ph. Nelsoni of gardens is an unjustified name, covering a white 

 form of Ph. subulata, q.v. 



Ph. nitida is nothing but a name. 



Ph. nivalis has no right to be even this — being the same thing as 

 the white form of Ph. subulata, which is also so often called Ph. Nelsoni, 

 and well worthy, in its sheeted, snowy beauty, of the most laudatory 

 name that could be invented, so long as it is invented by someone 

 who has Latin enough to know that " nivalis " is not descriptive but 

 territorial, and means a plant that lives hi the snow regions, not a 

 plant whoso whiteness calls theirs to mind ; the descriptive epithet 

 to suggest a comparison with snow is niveus, and niveus alone. 



Ph. ovata is Ph. Carolina of gardens, no less than Ph. triflora and 



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