Wild blue phlox
Phlox divaricata shares its other common name, ‘Wild Sweet William’ with its congeners, so I use the less poetic name. This plant, from the same family as Greek Valerian, was blooming on the banks of the Crum near Victoria Mills, although I suspect it will soon be all over. (I’ll put a map of the Crum area up soon; for now, the Crum Woods Stewardship Committee has several on their site).
Rhoades and Block tell me that the lack of obvious notches in the petals could mean that my specimen is the subspecies laphamii, ‘Wherry’, a Midwestern variety that grows here where it has escaped from cultivation.
– Phlox divaricata
Samuel B. Palmer
Biology Dept.
Swarthmore College
Biology Dept.
Swarthmore College
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
All of the Palmer Watercolors are courtesy of the Biology Department of Swarthmore College. A searchable database of the images is available through the Swarthmore library’s Triptych site.