100 Cultivation of the Phlox. 



wind ; no other care is requisite to success, but to keep the 

 ground well stirred and free from weeds. 



When phloxes are cultivated from seed, they do best when 

 sown in the autumn. A small bed may be made, and the 

 seeds sown in drills about a foot apart, covering them about 

 an inch thick, as the seeds are large. In the Spring they 

 will grow up freely, when they should be thinned out. Keep 

 them free from weeds, and the second year they will come 

 into bloom. Such as give the promise of good kinds should 

 be marked, and the others dug up and destroyed. The third 

 year those selected may be divided, as we have directed, 

 when they will show the full beauty of their flowers. 



We have cultivated a great number of phloxes, and raised 

 hundreds from seeds : but as the seeds were mostly self-sown, 

 they presented, with one or two exceptions, nothing new in 

 color to merit preservation. But having, in the autumn of 

 1844, selected in Paris thirty or forty of the finest new varie- 

 ties to be purchased, several of which we there saw in 

 bloom, and nearly all of which flowered finely in our garden 

 the last autumn, we have thought a brief description of 

 twenty-four of the best would afford amateurs an opportu- 

 nity to make a selection of choice kinds, to take the place of 

 such of the older varieties as are unworthy of cultivation. 



Phloxes vary much in their foliage, several of the species 

 having long, broad, and rugose leaves, while others have 

 narrow, smooth and glossy ones ; the former are also gener- 

 ally of stronger and taller grou th, and mostly later flower- 

 ers ; decussata and pyramidalis, are of the first named habit, 

 and suff"rutic6sa and maculata, of the second. In our de- 

 scriptions we have noticed the habit of each variety. 



1. Vhlox decussata amcemsslma. — Dark rose, with crimson 

 eye; flowers good form; corymb large ; foliage broad; flow- 

 ering in September and October ; height 2 to 3 feet. 



2. Almerene. — Rich lilac pink, with large white eye ; co- 

 rymbs large ; foliage broad ; flowering in September and Oc- 

 tober ; height 2 to 3 feet. Beautiful. 



3. Apollo. — Purplish pink, with liglit crimson eye ; flowers 

 large; foliage broad ; flowering in September and October; 

 height 2 feet. 



4. Artahanes. — Rich rosy purple, with light eye : flow- 



