Moss Flox

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Moss Flox is the smell of Phlox subulata, the mat-forming ground cover also sold as moss phlox, creeping phlox or moss pink. It is not the tall garden phlox published here as Phlox. Two things are attested and they pull in opposite directions. The flowers carry a sweet honey-like scent that is strongest at dusk. The plant as a whole has a musky, skunky odour that three independent sources compare to marijuana. The note holds both.

Scent Profile

Floral leads because the note is named for a flower and Phlox subulata is a phlox. It sits below the published Phlox note at 0.60, because none of the three sources here describes the bloom in floral terms at all. Honeyed is the only positive description of the flower anyone gives: a sweet, honey-like scent strongest at dusk. Green and aromatic_herbal carry the leafy half of the marijuana comparison. Sulphurous carries the skunky half, held well below the published Cannabis note at 0.55 because these sources say the plant is mistaken for cannabis at a distance, not that it smells of the resin. Animalic is the word musky, used directly of the crushed foliage. Sweet_vanillic and powdery are small and follow the honey and the phlox family. Earthy is a trace and nobody claims it. All nine values are horticultural readings with no supplier odour panel behind them, so the spreads are 0.12 to 0.26 and the confidence is 0.42.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeHeart · ~5h lasting

Family Floral, Sweet & Gourmand, Green & Aromatic

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Phlox subulata, a low creeping perennial of eastern North America, grown as a rock-garden and border ground cover. No manufacturer sells an extract of it. Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, Symrise, ScenTree and Eden Botanicals publish nothing under Moss Flox or Phlox subulata. Every citable description is horticultural. Wikipedia says the odour of the plants may be mistaken for that of marijuana. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources says the same in four words: creeping phlox smells like marijuana.

Usage in Perfumery

Used as an imagined garden note rather than a bought material. It appears on one perfume in the data and on none in Parfumo. Gardening Know How places the honeyed sweetness in the flowers at dusk, where it draws moth pollinators, and the cannabis-like muskiness in the leaves when they are crushed underfoot. A composition using the name is reaching for one or the other, and the vector keeps both live rather than choosing.