From Blue to Purple 



Wild Blue Phlox 



(Phlox dmaricata) Phlox family 



Flowers Pale lilac blue, slightly fragrant, borne on sticky pedicels, 

 in loose, spreading clusters. Calyx with 5 long, sharp teeth* 

 Corolla of 5 flat lobes, indented like the top of a heart, and 

 united into a slender tube ; 5 unequal, straight, short stamens 

 in corolla tube ; i pistil with 3 stigmas. " Stem : i to 2 ft. 

 high, finely coated with sticky hairs above, erect or spread- 

 ing, and producing leafy shoots from base. Leaves : Of flower- 

 ing stem opposite, oblong, tapering to a point ; of sterile 

 shoots oblong or egg-shaped, not pointed, i to 2 in. long. 



Preferred Habitat Moist, rocky woods. 



Flcnvering Season April June. 



Distribution Eastern Canada to Florida, Minnesota to Arkansas. 



The merest novice can have no difficulty in naming the 

 flower whose wild and cultivated relations abound throughout 

 North America, the almost exclusive home of the genus, although 

 it is to European horticulturists, as usual the first to see the pos- 

 sibilities in our native flowers, that we owe the gay hybrids in 

 our gardens. Mr, Drummond, a collector from the Botanical 

 Society of Glasgow, early in the thirties sent home the seeds of 

 a species from Texas, which became the ancestor of the gorgeous 

 annuals, the Drummond phloxes of commerce to-day ; and although 

 he died of fever in Cuba before the plants became generally known, 

 not even his kinsman, the author of " Natural Law in the Spiritual 

 World," has done more to immortalize the family name. 



While the wild blue phlox is sometimes cultivated, it is the 

 Garden Phlox (P. paniculata), common in woods and thickets 

 from Pennsylvania to Illinois and southward, that undera gardener's 

 care bears the large terminal clusters of purple, magenta, crimson, 

 pink, and white flowers abundant in old-fashioned, hardy borders. 

 From these it has escaped so freely in many sections of the North 

 and East as to be counted among the local wild flowers. Unless 

 the young offshoots are separated from the parent and given a nook 

 of their own, the flower quickly reverts to the original type. Euro- 

 pean cultivators claim that the most brilliant colors are obtained 

 by crossing annual with perennial phloxes. 



Wild Sweet William (P. maculata), another perennial much 

 sought by cultivators, loves the moisture of low woods and the 

 neighborhood of streams in the Middle and Western States when 

 it is free to choose its habitat ; but it, too, has so freely escaped 

 from gardens farther north into dry and dusty roadsides, that any 



35 



