Virginia Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) — identification, habitat & look-alikes

Virginia spiderwort is a native wildflower of the eastern and central U.S. whose three-petaled blue-to-purple flowers each open in the morning and close by afternoon, with new ones appearing daily for weeks. It grows along woodland edges, meadows, and roadsides, and is a familiar perennial in shady native gardens.

Appearance

Appearance: A clump-forming perennial 1.5–3 ft (45–90 cm) tall with narrow, arching, grasslike leaves up to 1 ft (30 cm) long.
Flowers: Clusters of flowers about 1–2 in (3–5 cm) across with three petals in blue, purple, pink, or white. Six yellow-tipped stamens are covered in fuzzy hairs.
Flowering time: Spring to early summer, roughly April through July; cutting back after bloom can bring a second flush in late summer.

Look-alikes

Ohio spiderwortTradescantia ohiensis

Look closely just below the flower: Virginia spiderwort has densely hairy flower stalks and , while Ohio spiderwort has smooth flower stalks and sepals that are smooth or have only a small tuft of hairs at the tip. Ohio spiderwort also often shows a whitish, waxy bloom on the leaf undersides.

Why they get mixed upThe flowers look nearly identical and the two hybridize where they meet.

Zigzag spiderwortTradescantia subaspera

Zigzag spiderwort has broad leaves, over 0.8 in (2 cm) wide and wider than the leaf sheath. Virginia spiderwort's leaves are narrow, about as wide as the sheath or narrower.

Where it lives

Typical habitats: woodland edges
meadows and prairies
roadsides
Range: Native across the eastern and central U.S., plus Ontario and Cuba. It has also been introduced to California and parts of Europe.
Preferred conditions: Partial shade and moist, fertile soil with a near-neutral pH (6.0–8.0), though it tolerates average garden soil.
Flowering: Flowers Apr–Jul
Flowers Apr–Jul

Growing it

Care: Hardy in USDA zones 4–9. Leaves may flop and die back in summer heat, then regrow; cut stems back after flowering. It self-seeds readily. Buy nursery-propagated plants rather than digging from the wild.
Propagation: By division or seed; it spreads by self-sowing.
Toxicity: Sap can irritate skin, and eating the plant may upset the mouth and stomach of people or pets.

Name and classification

Varieties and forms: Most garden plants sold under this name are hybrids with Ohio spiderwort and zigzag spiderwort, grouped as the Andersoniana Group, in white, blue, pink, and purple, including double-flowered forms.

Conservation

IUCN Red List: NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed

Culture and stories

Culture and stories: The genus honors John Tradescant the Elder and Younger, gardeners to the English king; the younger Tradescant collected this species in Virginia in the 1630s.
The Cherokee ate the young leaves and used the plant as medicine.
The hairs on its stamens are chains of single cells, so teachers use them to show cell structure under a microscope. In Ohio spiderwort, a close relative, stamen-hair cells turn from blue to pink after radiation exposure, and the plant was widely studied as a radiation indicator in the 1970s–80s.