22 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



remarkable for perfection of form and exquisite colouring. 

 In self-coloured purple, crimson, and salmon-tinted, and 

 in oculate flowers that have white grounds and centres 

 delicately stained with rose, carmine, and ruby, this class 

 of plants is extremely rich. Of pure whites there are not 

 many of good quality, and we have as yet no scarlet, no 

 yellow, and no blue phloxes. We may, however, hope 

 for scarlet and blue, because in some of the later varieties 

 these colours are nearly realised, but we can hardly hope 

 for yellow, since nowhere in the genus is there any strong 

 leaning that way. As the case stands we have command 

 of a sumptuous series of summer and autumn flowers, and 

 it is but the simple truth to say that the florists' phloxes 

 have pre-eminent claims on the attention of amateurs, 

 because of their splendour, their hardiness, cheapness, and 

 extreme usefulness, whether to exhibit, to cut from for 

 decorations, or to enrich the garden with their noble 

 panicles of many-coloured flowers. 



As to the employment of phloxes in the garden, there 

 is no method so effective as to dot them about amongst 

 trees and shrubs, keeping them, of course, in the fore- 

 ground, and ensuring them a sufficiency of air and light. 

 As border flowers, they are 'invaluable ; but the least in- 

 teresting way of growing them is in large compartments 

 of phloxes only, as we see them in nurseries, and in the 

 gardens of amateurs who give them particular attention 

 for the purpose of exhibiting them. When well grouped 

 on the exhibition table they are altogether delightful, but 

 a great lot of phloxes in a lump, as it were, in the garden 

 is like a mouthful of honej" too rich to be enjoyable, and 

 likely to choke one. 



The cultivation of the phlox is a very simple affair. 



