Common Name: PHLOX FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, shrub, vine. Leaf: simple or compound, cauline (or most basal), alternate or opposite; stipules 0. Inflorescence: cymes, heads, clusters, or flower 1; bracts in involucres or not. Flower: sepals generally 5, fused at base, translucent membrane generally connecting lobes, torn by fruit; corolla generally 5-lobed, radial or bilateral, salverform to bell-shaped, throat often well defined; stamens generally 5, epipetalous, attached at >= 1 level, filaments of >= 1 length, pollen white, yellow, blue, or red; ovary superior, chambers generally 3, style 1, stigmas generally 3. Fruit: capsule. Seed: 1--many, when wetted swelling or not, gelatinous or not.
Genera In Family: 26 genera, 314 species: America, northern Europe, northern Asia; some cultivated (Cantua, Cobaea (cup-and-saucer vine), Collomia, Gilia, Ipomopsis, Linanthus, Phlox). Note: Leptodactylon moved to Linanthus.
eFlora Treatment Author: Robert W. Patterson, family description, key to genera, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Robert W. Patterson, Thomas J. Rosatti.

Habit: Annual, perennial herb, subshrub. Stem: generally erect, generally branched from base. Leaf: cauline, alternate or opposite, entire or lobes 3--9, pinnate or palmate, linear to narrow-lanceolate or spoon-shaped. Inflorescence: open or dense clusters or cyme or flower 1; bracts leaf-like; flowers sessile or not. Flower: corolla funnel-shaped, salverform, or bell-shaped; stamens attached at 1 level, included or exserted, pollen yellow. Fruit: capsule, valves 3(4). Seed: generally many, when wet gelatinous to not.
Etymology: (Greek: flax flower) Note: Other taxa in TJM (1993) moved to Leptosiphon.
eFlora Treatment Author: Robert W. Patterson & J. Mark Porter
Reference: Porter & Johnson 2000 Aliso 19:55--91; Fraga & Bell 2012 Aliso 30: 97--102; Porter & Patterson 2015 Aliso 32:55--88