A^ctobUi"  1910™*}  Rhizome  and  Roots  of  Phlox  Carolina.  471 
Phlox  must  be  referred  to  Ruellia,"  which  latter  drug  I  hope  to 
take  up  later. 
In  order  that  errors  may  be  eliminated  from  the  literature,  it 
should  be  pointed  out  that  in  the  English  translation  of  Solereder's 
"  Systematic  Anatomy  of  the  Dicotyledons,"  which  appeared  as 
recently  as  1908,  the  translators  continue  the  mistake  in  the  original 
German  edition  of  accepting  as  true  the  description  given  by 
Greenish  4  of  what  he  had  reason  to  suppose  was  Phlox  Carolina,  but 
which  it  has  since  been  seen  was  not  an  authentic  specimen.  It  should 
also  be  pointed  out  for  the  benefit  of  practical  workers  that  the  ma- 
terial studied  by  Professor  Greenish  was  drug  material,  some  of 
which  was  supplied  by  Professor  Maisch,  but  neither  of  them  is 
open  to  criticism,  both  of  them  having  accepted  as  probably  genuine 
what  was  supplied  them,  as  was  then  more  customary.  Indeed, 
Professor  Greenish  did  a  very  excellent  piece  of  work,  and  nothing 
would  have  been  left  to  be  desired  if  he  had  known  the  name  of 
the  plant  from  which  the  material  with  which  he  worked  was  derived 
and  had  named  his  paper  accordingly,  that  is,  by  substituting  the 
name  Ruellia  ciliosa  for  Phlox  Carolina.  Later  experience  also 
shows  that  it  is  extremely  hazardous  to  base  a  study  of  a  vegetable 
drug  on  the  commercial  material  alone,  and  that  no  studies  of  this 
kind  can  be  considered  entirely  reliable  or  authoritative  which  are 
not  based  upon  material  collected  from  or  compared  with  that 
derived  from  plants  which  have  been  identified. 
The  species  belonging  to  the  genus  Phlox  are  found  chiefly 
in  North  America,  where  they  number  about  thirty.  The  plants 
are  mostly  herbaceous  perennials,  a  number  of  the  species  beinp- 
extensively  cultivated  for  ornamental  purposes.  The  stems  are 
either  decumbent  or  ascending,  or  in  some  cases  they  are  slightly 
decumbent  near  the  base  and  then  ascending,  as  in  Phlox  ovata. 
Phlox  ovata  is  found  in  open  mountainous  woods  from  Alabama 
to  Pennsylvania,  and  there  are  some  colored  plates  representing 
this  plant  in  the  Botanical  Magazine  ft.  528  and  1344)-  According 
to  Gray,  in  his  "  Flora  of  North  America,"  Phlox  Carolina  is  merely 
a  taller  form  of  Phlox  ovata,  but  having  narrower,  more  tapering 
leaves  and  pointed  calyx  teeth,  approaching  Phlox  glaberrima. 
According  to  botanists  to-day,  the  form  with  ovate  or  ovate- 
lanceolate  leaves  is  regarded  as  the  typical  species,  and  the  name 
Phlox  Carolina  has  been  superseded  by  Phlox  ovata. 
Phlox  ovata  generally  attains  a  height  of  from  3  to  6  decimetres. 
