Spreading Phlox – Native Plant of the Day 10/25/2024
Photo from 6/13/2011. Location: Custer County, ID.
More photos & info at the Phlox diffusa detail page.
Spreading Phlox – Phlox diffusa
Also NPOD 10/25/2013, 10/25/2014, 10/25/2015, 10/25/2016, 10/25/2017, 10/25/2018, 10/25/2019, 10/25/2020, 10/25/2021, 10/25/2022, 10/25/2023
This is a great site. Thank you. I didn’t see any mention of the root system being a tap root. When I see a large mound of P. diffusa, is it one plant with one tap root?
Thank you, Ruth. I can’t speak authoritatively on this, but I can make a guess. 🙂 I’d guess that a “mound” may be one or more plants. Phlox diffusa does have a taproot (according to Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center; I wasn’t able to find a root description elsewhere), and has decumbent stems – they run along the ground with branches rising vertically from the ground-level stem. Each branch can be terminated with a single blossom, and a stem may have many branches. Additionally a plant may have multiple stems arising from that same root, so a mound may be of many branches from multiple stems of a single plant. However, I see no reason to think that stems of different plants may intermix in a ‘mound.’