320 BRECK’S NEW BOOK OF FLOWERS. 
with white flowers; plant the middle of May, and if the 
scarlet and white varieties are mixed, the effect when in 
flower will be very pleasing. 
PHLOX. 
[From a Greek word signifying flame. The plant so named by the ancients is 
supposed to have been a Lychnis.] 
“ Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers,— 
Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book, 
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers, 
From lowliest nook !” 
The genus is North American only, and is one of the 
handsomest in cultivation. “It comprises most elegant bor- 
der-flowers, valuable for blooming from the first of May 
to November, with an endless variety of colors. What 
adds much to their value, is, that they are perfectly hardy, 
requiring little or no protection in the winter, and are easy 
to propagate. The only fault they have is that of spread- 
ing too rapidly. The genus gives us both annual and per- 
ennial species; the perennials are vernal, early summer 
and autumnal blooming. 
Phlox subul4ta.—Moss Pink.—This is found from New 
York, to Michigan, southward. A British collector ex- 
claimed on seeing a patch of this species in one of the pine 
barrens of New Jersey, “the beauty of that alone is 
worth coming to America to see, it is so splendid.” Most 
of the species delight in a rich sandy loam. When the 
plants become large, they ought to-be divided and planted 
in fresh ground. There are varieties of P. subwlata with 
pink, purple, white, and rosy-eyed flowers. The plant is 
very dwarf, and has a solid mass of mossy, bristly, ever- 
green foliage, sending up innumerable bunches of its del- 
icate flowers, completely covering the whole. P. nivalis, 
is a beautiful variety of this, formerly in my collection, but 
