POLEMONIACE^E. (POLEMONIUM FAMILY.) 247 



ORDER 51. POLCITIOWIACE^E. (POLEMONIUM FAMILY.) 



Herbs, with alternate or opposite leaves, regular 5-merous and 5- 

 androus flowers, the lobes of the corolla convolute in the bud, a 3-celled 

 ovary and a 3-lobed style : the pod few to many-seeded, its 3 valves 

 usually breaking away from the central column. 



1. Phlox. Corolla strictly salverform, with slender tube and narrow orifice. Stamens 



unequally inserted on the tube of the corolla : filaments very short : anthers mostly 



included. Leaves opposite and entire. 

 2 Gilia. Corolla from campanulate t< funnelform or salverform, with an open orifice. 



Stamens equally or unequally inserted : filaments not declined, naked at base. Leaves 



various. 

 3. Polemoninm. Corolla from funnelform to nearly rotate. Stamens equally inserted : 



filaments more or less declined and usually pilose-appendaged at base. Leaves all 



alternate, pinnate or pinnately parted. 



1. PHLOX, L. PHLOX. 



Cauline leaves sessile and opposite, or some of the upper alternate : flowers 

 cymose, showy, and variously colored. Our Rocky Mountain forms are some- 

 what suffrutescent, chiefly with narrow or minute and thickish-margined 

 leaves, and branches or peduncles mostly one flowered. 



* Densely cespitose and depressed, mostly forming cushion-like evergreen mats or 



tufts : the short leaves crowded up to the solitary and usually sessile flowers, 



and also fascicled. 



- Leaves more or less beset or ciliate with cobweb-like or woolly hairs, 

 M. Very short, broadish or scale-like, soft, barely mucronate, appressed-imbricated : 



plants very depressed, moss-like, forming pulvinate tufts: lobes of the corolla 



entire. 



1. P. bryoides, Nutt. Copiously Innate: leaves very densely appressed- 

 imbricated in 4 strict ranks on the loosely tufted branches, scale-like, ovate- 

 or triangular-lanceolate, minute (l lines long), with rather inflexed mar- 

 gins : tube of the corolla considerably longer than the calyx ; its cuneate lobes 

 barely 1^ lines long. PI. Gamb. 153. Alpine summits in Wyoming and 

 nor tli ward. 



2. P. mtlSCOides, Nutt. Like the preceding, more resembling some canes- 

 cent moss : the branches much tufted, very short : leaves less strictly 4-ranked 

 and less lanafe, ovate-lanceolate : tube of the corolla not surpassing the calyx. 

 Jour. Acad. Philad. vii. 42. Mountains at the sources of the Missouri. 



H- -M- Leaves subulate or acerose, somewhat rigid, less oppressed : plants forming 

 broad mats 2 to 4 inches high. 



3. P. Hoodii, Richards. Sparsely or loosely lanate, becoming glabrate : 

 leaves rather rigid, erect, somewhat loosely imbricated : tube of the (white?) 

 corolla not exceeding the calyx ; its lobes obovate, entire. From the mountains 

 of S W. Wyoming northward. 



