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cies in the following genera : Phlox, Gilia, Polemonium and Cobaea, 

 the first-named having the greatest space and the largest repre- 

 sentation of species, including wild and cultivated representatives. 

 The Phlox Drummondii, an annual of the gardens, has been in 

 blossom for many months and has demonstrated its right to a 

 place in the ornamental grounds, because of its ease of culture, 

 profusion of blooms and not least for its intrinsic beauty. 



Now as the freezing weather comes the end is near, but the 

 lighter frosts of earlier nights had no disturbing effect. While 

 the particolored blooms are still numerous, they are not sufficient 

 to obscure the clusters of small dry stars that cover the stems, 

 and below them the ground is covered all around with the young 

 seedlings ready for the coming year. 



It is to these "stars " that the reader's attention is called, for 

 they are nothing other than the calyces of the phlox flowers 

 standing open and empty upon their short stiff stems. They are 

 like so many miniature nests from which the eggs have hatched 

 and the fledglings have flown. This is not so figurative a state- 

 ment as it first seems for each "nest" has three as the normal 

 number of seeds, which are of large size, as seeds go, and repre- 

 sent the offspring as do the eggs. Here we must note a material 

 change in the method of dispersion, for eggs take to themselves 

 wings by hatching and the wings bear away the young. Our 

 smooth and shiny phlox capsule as it matures separates quickly 

 along three lines and with such force are the parts disturbed that 

 the three seeds within are thrown out for some distance. At the 

 same time there is a distinct sound that can be heard for several 

 feet and as one works among the phlox plants, carrying pol- 

 len to a tiny stigma or adjusting a bag to a castrated blossom, he 

 may feel the seeds as they are hurled against his face or rattle 

 upon the straw of his broad-brimmed hat. When mature pods 

 are placed three or more feet from a wall the seeds may be 

 thrown across the intervening space. The wonder is that so 

 small a body can possess so much explosive and expulsive 

 power. After the vegetable mortar is fired there remains only 

 the calyx as a sort of gun-carriage which takes on in drying the 

 " star" above described. — Byron D. Halsted. 



