Large patches of the DOWNY PHLOX (P. pilosa) brighten dry prairie land with its pinkish blossoms in late spring. Britton and Brown's botany gives its range as "Ontario to Manitoba, New Jersey, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas." The plant does its best to attain a height of two feet; usually its flowers are much nearer the ground. Butterflies, the principal visitors of most phloxes, although long-tongued bees and even flies can sip their nectar, are ever seen hovering above them and transferring pollen, although in this species the style is so short pollen must often fall into the tube and self-fertilize the stigma. To protect the flowers from useless crawling visitors, the calices are coated with sticky matter, and the stems are downy. OBEDIENT PLANT; FALSE DRAGONHEAD; LION'S HEART (Physostegia Virginiana) Mint family Flowers - Pale magenta, purplish rose, or flesh-colored, often variegated with white, 1 in. long or over, in dense spikes from 4 to 8 in. long. Calyx a 5-toothed oblong bell, swollen and remaining open in fruit, held up by lance-shaped bracts. Corolla tubular and much enlarged where it divides into 2 lips, the upper lip concave, rounded, entire, the lower lip 3 lobed. Stamens 4, in two pairs under roof of upper lip, the filaments hairy; 1 pistil. Stem: 1 to 4 ft. high, simple or branched above, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, firm, oblong to oblong-lanceolate, narrowing at base, deeply saw-edged. Preferred Habitat - Moist soil. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Quebec to the Northwest Territory, southward to the Gulf of Mexico as far west as Texas. Bright patches of this curious flower enliven railroad ditches, gutters, moist meadows and brooksides - curious, for it has the peculiarity of remaining in any position in which it is placed. With one puff a child can easily blow the blossoms to the opposite side of the spike, there to stay in meek obedience to his will. "The flowers are made to assume their definite position," says Professor W. W. Bailey in the "Botanical Gazette," "by friction of the pedicels against the subtending bracts. Remove the bracts, and they at once fall limp."