our 



l82 PHLOX REPTANS. CRAWLING PHLOX. 



shall have the preference, should be strictly adhered to. But 

 plant is still very generally called Phlox stolonifera by English 

 authors, while American authors have without exception, and 

 very justly, adopted the name Phlox rcptans, as first used by 

 Michaux. 



It is curious to note the coincidence in the names given to 

 our plant by Michaux, and by Curtis in the " Botanical Mag- 

 azine," without any knowledge on the part of the one, of the 

 doings of the other. For rcptans is the Latin for "crawling." 

 and stolonifera signifies " stolon-bearing," stolons being trailing 

 or reclined and rooting shoots, or runners, which creep alono- 

 the ground, like the runners of the strawberry. And indeed the 

 peculiarity to which this species owes its distinctive appellation 

 is very striking. Most of the Phloxes are what are called her- 

 baceous plants ; that is to say, the stalks die down to a root- 

 stock or crown every year, and there is nothing left of the plant 

 during winter but bud-like eyes, from which the flower-stalks 

 and leaves push up in the spring. The Phlox reptans, however, 

 is an evergreen, and the way in which it grows is well shown by 

 our artist. The plant sends out a runner or stolon, and from the 

 terminal bud, made at the end of the stolon in the fall, a central 

 flower-shoot ascends, together with another shoot which bears 

 nothing but leaves. Besides these two shoots, however, — both of 

 which die in the fall, the leaf-bearing one seemingly without hav- 

 ing accomplished anything, — a number of others push up, some 

 of which are^ only scantily clothed with leaves, while the rest 

 bear no leaves at all. The scantily leaved shoots often root at 

 the tip, but the best plants for the future are produced by the 

 leafless runners, which form a bud at the end with roots, and 

 then die. All these various kinds of shoots can be seen in our 

 drawing. In the middle is the flower-stem, to its left is one of 

 the scantily leaved shoots, to the right the full-leaved shoot, and 

 part of the leafless, creeping runner, which is destined to form 

 a good, strong, new plant. In the spring, when growth com- 

 mences, small fibres push out from the old runner (a feature 



