the.com/phlox
a flower that named itself after fire and then quietly threw the best garden parties.
means Phlox is a genus of flowering plants prized in gardens for their dense clusters of star-shaped, often brightly colored blooms.
from From Greek phlox, meaning 'flame'—the same word the Greeks used for a flame-colored plant. The name was carried into modern botany by Linnaeus in the 18th century and applied to these New World wildflowers, whose vivid clustered petals must have struck someone as gloriously fiery. The Greek root is related to phlegein, 'to burn,' a distant cousin of the same fire-words that give us 'phlegm' (once thought a humor of heat) and 'phlogiston.'
- name origin
- Greek for flame, despite mostly soft pinks
- moth magnet
- night-blooming species feed hawkmoths with foot-long tongues
- five petals
- fused tube flares into a flat star face
- native range
- almost entirely a North American original
- creeping habit
- some species carpet ground, others stand tall
phlox drummondii — annual flowering plant native to texas, blooms in pink, red, white, and purple
phlox paniculata — perennial garden phlox cultivated in temperate regions, fragrant summer blooms
phlox subulata — creeping phlox groundcover used in rock gardens, blooms april-may across north america