Phlox roemeriana Scheele, gold–eye phlox. Annual, taprooted, not rosetted, several–stemmed at base, 5—18 cm tall; shoots with only cauline leaves, short–hairy and some parts with longer, hirsute hairs.
Stems cylindric, to 1.5 mm diameter, hirsute with hairs 0.5—1 mm long.
Leaves opposite decussate, simple, subsessile (petiole indistinct from blade) and sessile with pair fused across node or forming faint ledges, without stipules; blade oblanceolate, to < 10—25 × 2.5—6 mm, entire and ciliate on margins, acute at tip, pinnately veined but only midrib visible and raised on lower surface.
Inflorescence cyme, terminal, several–flowered, bracteate, pubescent; bractlet subtending pedicel lanceolate, 14—15 × 3—4 mm, green, with midvein, short–hairy and with some hirsute hairs; pedicel flexible, 10—15 mm long, short–hairy with backward–pointing hairs.
Flower bisexual, radial, (15—)24—33 mm across; calyx 5–lobed, (7—)13—14 mm long, lacking awns; tube narrowly bell–shaped with 5 light green ribs and colorless membranous panels slightly < linear ribs, ± 5 mm long, membranous panels gathered later expanded in fruit, long–hirsute on ribs; lobes ascending, acuminate–lanceolate to linear, mostly ca. 8 × 1—1.3 mm, long–hirsute on both surfaces and with some shorter hairs; corolla 5–lobed; tube + throat, 9.5—10.5 mm long, tube enlarged around ovary ca. 1.3 mm, throat ± 5–sided and faces shallowly grooved, throat flared at orifice to 2 mm diameter, yellow–green at base of corolla changing to yellow within tube and throat, at orifice with a ring of 10 faint red spots; lobes ± fan–shaped and broadly acute at tip, 8—14 × 7—13 mm, mostly glossy yellow at base (continuous with throat), whitish next, and at least from midlobe pale pink–purple changing to light pink–purple with faint veins, some corollas with little white next to throat and others with pigment darker purple; stamens 5, fused to corolla at 2 levels, 2 at 3.5 mm and 3 at 7 mm from base; filaments ca. 0.25 mm long, white; anthers dorsifixed, dithecal, 2.2—2.4 mm long, light yellow, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen light yellow; nectary disc surrounding base of ovary, wavy, ca. 0.15 mm thick, dark green; pistil 1, included, 2.6—3 mm long, < calyx tube; ovary superior, ovoid, 1—1.2 × 0.8—0.9 mm, green, glabrous, 3–chambered, each chamber with 3 ovules; style to 1.6 mm long, 3–branched, ca. 0.4 mm and green to fork, the branches suberect, stigmatic, greenish white to pale green at tip.
Fruit capsule, dehiscent by 3 valves, several–seeded, obovoid to ellipsoid, ca. 4.5 × 3—3.4 mm, straw–colored, valves thick–walled; calyx tube splitting nearly to base in membranous panels by developing fruit, lobes spreading and 10+ mm long.
Seed polygonal, 1.6—2 mm long, light brown, with winglike edges.
A. C. Gibson