470  Rhizome  and  Roots  of  Phlox  Carolina.  {Aoctobe?'  i?™' 
THE  HISTOLOGY  OF  THE  RHIZOME  AND  ROOTS  OF 
PHLOX  OVATA  L.  (PHLOX  CAROLINA  L.).* 
By  Henry  Kraemer. 
For  some  time  I  have  felt  the  importance  of  making  studies 
of  the  structure  of  the  underground  portions  of  American  plants, 
as  there  are  so  many  vegetable  fragments  of  unknown  origin  in 
many  cases  which  are  found  admixed  with  the  more  common  drugs, 
and  which  have  a  superficial  resemblance  to  them.  Thus,  unless 
careful  garbling  is  practised,  these  foreign  plant  parts  may  not 
only  be  found  as  an  admixture,  but  as  an  entire  substitute  for 
the  genuine  drug. 
My  interest  in  Phlox  Carolina  dates  back  some  twelve  years 
when,  at  my  request,  Mr.  C.  D.  Beadle,  of  the  Biltmore  Herbarium, 
sent  me  a  number  of  plants  which  he  collected  in  the  mountains  of 
North  Carolina.  While  I  did  not  make  an  extended  study  of  the 
material  at  the  time,  I  examined  it  sufficiently  to  lead  to  the  con- 
clusion 1  that  the  material  which  Greenish  described  in  his  paper 
did  not  answer  to  the  description  of  Phlox  Carolina.  My  main 
object  at  that  time  was  to  determine  the  origin  of  a  substitute  for 
Spigelia,  in  which  one  of  my  students  at  Northwestern  University 
discovered  by  accident  the  presence  of  calcium  carbonate.  This  sub- 
stitute was  shown  subsequently  and  independently  by  Stockberger  2 
and  Holm  3  to  be  the  rhizome  of  Rnellia  ciliosa. 
In  connection  with  their  studies  on  Spigelia  marilandica  and 
Ruellia  ciliosa,  these  authors  have  also  described  the  structure  of 
Phlox  ovata  {Phlox  Carolina) .  While  the  papers  of  Stockberger 
and  Holm  are  excellent  contributions  to  the  subject,  there  are  still 
some  features  which  should  be  brought  out  more  distinctly,  es- 
pecially from  the  practical  pharmacognostic  point  of  view.  Stock- 
berger considers  that  the  rhizome  and  roots  of  Phlox  ovata  "  rarely 
or  never  occur  as  a  substitute  for  Spigelia,"  and  I  agree  with 
him  in  a  measure,  but  its  occurrence  is  still  reported  and,  besides, 
workers  do  not  seem  to  be  clear  in  regard  to  the  characters  of 
the  drug.  I  do  not,  however,  agree  with  the  statement  made  by 
Stockberger  that  "  the  root  so  generally  described  and  studied  as 
*  Read  before  the  Scientific  Section  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical 
Association,  May,  1910. 
