" Mrs. S. F.," Washington, D. C, notes : " Please tell me the name of the beautiful wild flower I send. Unfortunately it has faded, but I suppose enough is left to answer the purpose. I am from Central Alabama, where this beautiful flower does not grow; for though only a weed here, it is beautiful. I am no botanist of course, but a close observer and successful grower of plants - have read your ' Native Flowers and Ferns,' with great interest. Before me is the number with 'Phlox reptans,' or as we call it, ' Wild Sweet William,' one of our commonest wild flowers, blooming in great profusion when the 'bird-foot' (or, as we call it, 'crowfoot) violet blooms. When I read your book first, several years ago, I made a running commentary on the habits of such plants as I knew best".

[The "Wild Sweet William," to the Creeping Phlox, is a new popular name to literature, we believe. The flower enclosed is Echium vulgare. In the Old World, where it is indigenous, it is known as Viper's Bugloss, and in Virginia, where we found it several years ago, naturalized as abundantly as the ox-eye daisy is with us, we found the farmers calling it " Blue Devils." It is too bad that so handsome a flower should receive so disreputable a name. - Ed. G. M].