The Phulkian houses descended from Phul, a Sidhu Jat of the Malwa, and split into three states, Patiala, Nabha and Jind, with Faridkot as a related line. They are usually counted with the misls and were never really part of the Dal Khalsa.
They lay east of the Sutlej. In 1809 the Treaty of Amritsar placed the Cis-Sutlej chiefs under British protection, which stopped Ranjit Singh Ji from absorbing them and preserved them as states for another 138 years.
In 1857 all three supported the British and sent troops to Delhi. That decision is the hinge of their later history: it guaranteed their survival and it put them permanently on one side of an argument that the rest of Punjab was on the other side of.
Patiala became the largest Sikh state, with its own army, its own currency and the Moti Bagh and Qila Mubarak palaces. Nabha's ruler was deposed in 1923. Jind ruled from Sangrur.
In 1948 the eight Punjab states were merged into PEPSU, which was itself merged into Punjab in 1956. The Phulkian line held land in the Malwa for over three hundred years.
The three houses descend from Phul and they are not usually counted among the twelve misls, because they came under British protection in 1809 and became princely states instead.
Patiala was the largest, Nabha and Jind smaller, and all three survived to 1947 and were merged into PEPSU in 1948.
Their survival is why the Malwa has palaces, state archives, a court culture and a set of institutions that the Majha does not. The Sutlej line of 1809 produced two different Punjabs.