Bluejacket (Tradescantia ohiensis) — identification, habitat & look-alikes

Bluejacket, or Ohio spiderwort, is the most common and widespread spiderwort in the United States, growing wild across the eastern and central states on prairies, roadsides, and railroad edges. Each three-petaled blue-violet flower opens in the morning and usually closes by afternoon, but new buds keep it blooming for weeks from late spring into early summer.

Appearance

Appearance: Usually 2–3 ft (60–90 cm) tall, sometimes nearly 4 ft (115 cm). The round, smooth stems often have a bluish, waxy-looking coating.
Leaves: Long, narrow, grasslike leaves up to 15 in (38 cm) long and about 1 in (2.5 cm) wide, blue-green or grayish and hairless. They wrap around the stem at the base and angle upward.
Flowers: Clusters of 1-in (2.5 cm) flowers at the top of the stem, each with 3 rounded petals in light violet to blue-violet (occasionally pink or white), 6 bright yellow , and fuzzy violet hairs on the stamens. They have no scent.
Flowering time: Late May to early July in most of its range, for about six weeks. Only a few flowers are open at a time; they stay open longer on cloudy days.
Fruit: A small capsule that splits into three parts and releases brown seeds.

Look-alikes

Virginia spiderwortTradescantia virginiana

Virginia spiderwort has obvious hairs on the flower stalks and just below the flowers. Bluejacket is smooth there and has thinner, bluish-gray leaves.

Why they get mixed upBoth are eastern U.S. spiderworts with similar three-petaled blue-violet flowers.

Asiatic dayflowerCommelina communis

Dayflower has two large blue upper petals and one tiny white lower petal, and its flowers peek out of a folded, clam-shaped leaf. Spiderwort's three petals are equal in size.

Why they get mixed upSame plant family, with similar leaves and blue flowers that last only half a day.

Where it lives

Typical habitats: Prairies
Roadsides and railroad edges
Savannas and woodland edges
Fields and thickets
Range: Native to eastern and central North America: across the U.S. from Maine west to Minnesota and south to Texas and Florida, reaching Canada only in far southern Ontario near Windsor.
Preferred conditions: Full sun to partial shade, in moist to fairly dry soil. It grows in loam, clay, gravel, or sand, and often forms colonies on disturbed ground.
Flowering: Flowers May–Jul
Flowers May–Jul

Growing it

Care: Hardy in USDA zones 4–9 and easy in sunny native gardens. Cutting stems back to 6–12 in (15–30 cm) in midsummer tidies the sprawling foliage and can bring a few fall flowers. It self-seeds and spreads, so large clumps may need dividing.
Propagation: Spreads by seed and by offshoots from its thick, fleshy roots.

Name and classification

About the name: Older books may call it Tradescantia reflexa or by several other names that are now treated as the same species. Where it grows alongside other spiderworts it can hybridize with them.

Conservation

IUCN Red List: NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed

Culture and stories

Culture and stories: It shrugs off railroad herbicides better than most plants, which helps explain why it is so common along tracks.
Spiderwort stamen hairs are chains of single cells. Special lab-bred spiderwort clones whose blue cells turn pink when mutated have been used since the 1970s to test the effects of radiation.