Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

PRAIRIE PHLOX

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Phlox pilosa L.

Douglas County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 8-30 inches

Family: Polemoniaceae - Polemonium Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July

Stems:

Erect to ascending, 1-several, branching at base or sometimes above, 6-12 nodes, soft downy to glandular-hairy.

Leaves:

Opposite, simple, sessile, linear to lanceolate or narrowly ovate, 1 to 3.5 inches long, 1/4 to 1 inch long wide, prominent central vein; surfaces soft hairy; margins entire; tips tapering to long points.

Inflorescences:

Panicles, compact to open, terminal; flowers 12-50+.

Flowers:

Showy; calyx 5-lobed, 1/3 to 1/2 inch long, glandular-pubescent, tube and lobes about equal in length; lobes long-pointed; tips with stiff awns; corolla trumpet-shaped, pink, purple or rarely white; tube 1/3 to 1/2 inch long; lobes 5, petal-like, united, oblanceolate to egg-shaped, 1/2 inch long, spreading; tips rounded; base of each lobe often with darker spots; stamens 5, unequal, yellow-tipped.

Fruits:

Capsule, ovoid to oblong, 1/4 inch long, tan, breaking into 3 sections; seeds 3 per fruit, black.

Habitat:

Meadows, prairies, roadsides, open slopes or woodland openings; moist to dry rocky or sandy soils.

Distribution:

East 1/4 of Kansas.

Uses:

Native Americans took an infusion made from the leaves to purify the blood and used it as a wash to treat eczema. The root was used in a love medicine compound.

Comments:

A variable species that forms clumps via rhizomes. This phlox has no decumbent sterile shoots.

Prairie phlox