PHLOX (family Polemoniaceae), a genus of about 6o species, mostly perennial hardy plants of great beauty, natives of North America (one occurs in Siberia), with entire, usually oppo site, leaves and showy flowers generally in terminal clusters. Each flower has a tubular calyx with five lobes, and a salver shaped corolla with a long slender tube and a flat limb. The five stamens are given off from the tube of the corolla at different heights and do not protrude beyond it. The ovary is three-celled with one to two ovules in each cell ; it ripens into a three-valved capsule. Many species and varieties are tall herbs yielding a wealth of bloom throughout the summer and early autumn. They require a deep, rich and rather heavy loam, and a cool, moist position.
The dwarf perennial species and varieties, the "moss pinks" of gardens, are suitable plants for the rockery, and as edging to beds and borders. They are trailing and tufted in habit, the branches rooting at the nodes. They succeed in poorer soil, and drier situations than the tall kinds. Seed is seldom produced. Propagation is effected by cuttings in July and early August, placed in a cold frame, and by division of the plants, which should be lifted carefully, and cut into rooted portions as required. The
tufted kinds decay in patches in winter if the situation is moist.
Phlox Drummondii and its numerous varieties are half-hardy annuals in Great Britain. It is a small-growing hairy plant, flower ing profusely during the summer months. For early flowering it should be sown in heat in March and April and transferred out of doors in June. It succeeds if sown out of doors in April, but the flowering season is later and shorter.
The tall-growing border phloxes are divided into early and late flowering kinds respectively, the former derived mainly from P. glaberrima and P. suifruticosa, and the latter from P. maculata and P. paniculata. Owing to the frequent introduction of new kinds, no account of varieties can be given.
As practically all the species are native to the United States, with handsome representatives in every section of the country, admirers of this beautiful genus of plants have urged its adoption as the floral emblem or national flower of America.