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Phlox divaricata
Also called Blue Phlox, Forest Phlox, Blue Woodland Phlox, Timber Phlox, Wild Sweet William, Woodland Phlox, Louisiana Phlox
Wild blue phlox is a native, semi-evergreen woodland perennial of eastern North America with fragrant pastel flowers in spring. It thrives in cool, moist, shaded woodland soil and is grown in shade gardens.
Phlox divaricata, the wild blue phlox, woodland phlox, or wild sweet william, is a species of flowering plant in the family Polemoniaceae, native to forests and fields in eastern North America.
Cultivated varieties have various colours, including blue ('Blue Moon'), lavender ('Clouds of Perfume') and white ('Fuller's White', 'White Perfume').
Phlox divaricata and the lavender-flowered cultivar 'Chattahoochee' have both won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Wild blue phlox is most common in the climax successional stage of a community. The flowers produce nectar at the base of the long, narrow corolla tube, and pollen near the end of the corolla tube. Only butterflies, moths, skippers, and long-tongued bees have long enough tongues to drink the nectar. Short-tongued bees and flower flies are unable to reach the nectar, but may gather or feed on pollen.
Thickleaf phlox · Annual phlox · Fall phlox · Creeping phlox · Moss phlox · Phloxes
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Phlox divaricata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
