phlox

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various North American plants of the genus Phlox, having opposite leaves and flowers with a variously colored salverform corolla.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A genus of ornamental gamopetalous plants of the order Polemoniaceæ, characterized by a deeply three-valved loculicidal capsule, included stamens unequally inserted on the tube of a salver-shaped corolla, and entire leaves. The 30 species are natives of North America and Siberia. They are erect or spreading herbs, often tall perennials, bearing chiefly opposite leaves, and showy flowers usually in a flat or pyramidal cyme, red, violet, purplish, white, or blue. Most species are cultivated under the name phlox, P. speciosa as the pride-of-Columbia, P. subulata as the moss-pink. P. maculata is the wild sweet-william of the middle and western United States. P. paniculate, with large pyramidal clusters of flowers, native of the central and southern States, is the parent of most of the perennial phloxes of the gardens. The annual varieties in gardens are from P. Drummondii of Texas, there discovered by Drummond in 1835. P. dicaricata is the wild phlox of the eastern States, with early bluish-lilac flowers. P. reptans, the creeping phlox, is an important spring-flowering species of the south.
2. n. [lowercase] Any plant of this genus.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any flowering plant of the genus Phlox.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A genus of American herbs, having showy red, white, or purple flowers.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any polemoniaceous plant of the genus Phlox; chiefly North American; cultivated for their clusters of flowers