Common Name: SPIDERWORT FAMILY Habit: Annual, perennial herb, generally glabrous. Stem: prostrate to erect or climbing; nodes often rooting. Leaf: alternate, entire, simple, linear to ovate, closed basal sheath or lower leaf clasping stem. Inflorescence: cyme, umbel-like or not, terminal or terminal and axillary, subtended by 1--2 bracts [not]. Flower: generally bisexual, bilateral or radial, generally insect-pollinated; sepals 3, generally green; petals 3, blue, white, rose, purple, or pale violet, generally ephemeral; stamens 6 (3 sterile or not), filaments generally slender, often hairy; ovary superior, chambers 3, style 1. Fruit: generally capsule. Seed: 1--few per chamber. Genera In Family: 40 genera, +- 630 species: especially tropics, subtropics some cultivated as ornamental. eFlora Treatment Author: Robert E. Preston & Elizabeth McClintock Scientific Editor: Thomas J. Rosatti.
Habit: Perennial herb. Inflorescence: umbel-like, subtended by 2 leaf-like bracts. Flower: radial; petals equal, blue, rose, purple, or white; filament hairs generally from base, each a row of unusually large cells. Etymology: (John Tradescant, British naturalist, 1570s--1638) Unabridged Reference: Faden 2000 FNANM 22:173--187
Tradescantia fluminensis Vell.
NATURALIZED Leaf: 25--60 mm, glabrous, not glaucous. Inflorescence: terminal, occasionally axillary, flowers few to many. Flower: sepals 5--7 mm. Ecology: Shaded woodland, streambanks; Elevation: 70--255 m. Bioregional Distribution: SnJV, SnFrB, SCoRO, SCo; Distribution Outside California: uncommonly naturalized; native to South America. Flowering Time: Apr--Jul Unabridged Note: Also in disturbed urban areas. Streaming protoplasm was discovered in the unusually large cells of the filament hairs by Robert Brown in England, 1828. Jepson eFlora Author: Robert E. Preston & Elizabeth McClintock Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange) Previous taxon: Tradescantia Next taxon: Tradescantia ohiensis
Botanical illustration including Tradescantia fluminensis
Citation for this treatment: Robert E. Preston & Elizabeth McClintock 2012, Tradescantia fluminensis, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=77137, accessed on March 18, 2024.
Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on March 18, 2024.
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Data provided by the participants of the
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