PHLOX REPTANS. 



CRAWLING PHLOX. 



NATURAL ORDER, POLEMONIACE.E. 



Phlox reftans, Michaux. — Stem erect, with procumbent runners at the hasp hearing roand- 

 ish-obovate and rather fleshy subsessile leaves; upper stem-leaves ovate-lanceolate ; cor) mb 

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

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

 petioles; corolla deep purplish-red, — the tube about an . ich long, a little curve:. 

 lington's Flora Cestrha. See also Gray's Manual of th* Botany of the Nortlurn United 

 Stah-s, Wood's Class-Book of Botany, and Chapman's Flora of the Southern Unitea 



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 rcptaus. Shortly afterwards t he- 

 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- 

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

 ing plants were produced about 1S00. 



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 anothc 

 work, or that some one describes a plant as new whi< h is after- 

 wards found to be different in no essential particular from on 

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



