phlox

phlox, common name for plants of the genus Phlox and for members of the Polemoniaceae, a family of herbs (and some shrubs and vines) found chiefly in the W United States. The family includes many popular wild and garden flowers, especially the genera Phlox, Polemonium (called Jacob's ladder), and Gilia, a plant common in desert and mountain areas. Although most phloxes are perennial, the common garden phloxes are annual hybrids of the Texas species Phlox drummondii. The moss pink (Phlox subulata) is a creeping evergreen plant native to the E United States and often cultivated in rock gardens. A few species of phlox and polemonium are found in E Asia. The phlox family is classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Polemoniales.

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phlox

Moss pink (Phlox subulata)

(credit: Russ Kinne—Photo Researchers/EB Inc.)

Any of about 65 species of plants (genus Phlox), belonging to the family Polemoniaceae, admired both in gardens and in the wilds for their clustered heads of flowers. All species but one are native to North America. Phlox is herbaceous, usually with oval or linear leaves; it has heads of massed tubular flowers with five flaring lobes. A few species are woody, but most are herbaceous annuals or perennials. Sizes range from the 5-ft-high (1.5-m) summer phlox (P. paniculata) to the 18-in.-high (45-cm) woodland perennial blue phlox (P. divaricata) to the low-creeping, freely branching, evergreen moss pink, or creeping phlox (P. subulata).