Common Name: spiderwort, Virginia spiderwort

Botanical name: Tradescantia virginiana

Type: Herbaceous perennial

Family: Commelinaceae

 

Habit: Large but dainty perennial to 3 ft. with long, bright-green clumps of narrow leaves. Spiderwort flowers close by mid-day and last only one day. Blue-violet (sometimes white) three-petaled, 2” flowers with showy, yellow stamens in a terminal cluster above a pair of long, narrow, leaf-like bracts. The name comes from the angular leaf arrangement suggesting a squatting spider. 

 

Native Range: Eastern and southern United States

 

Zone: 4 to 9

 

Height: 1.5 to 3 feet

 

Spread: 1 to 1.5 feet

 

Bloom Time: May to July

 

Bloom Description: Blue to violet-blue, rarely rose or white

 

Sun: Part shade to full shade

 

Water: Medium

Maintenance: Medium

Suggested Use: Naturalize

Flower: Showy

 

Tropical spiderwort (Commelina benghalensis), or benghal dayflower is the weed. It is perennial, similar in look but not related to Tradescantia spp., the ornamental spiderwort. It is a highly invasive and problematic to gardeners and farmers in the southern states and considered a noxious weed nationwide. Tropical spiderwort spreads not only by self-seeding above ground, but also produces small seed-producing flowers underground. The plant also spreads by root nodes on any broken pieces left in the soil. It is said that of the 250,000 species of flowering plants, only 36 have underground flowers. Tropical spiderwort can be controlled by spot spraying vinegar or fatty acid products or with the commercial product Agralawn Crabgrass Killer. By the way, it is resistant to glyphosate (one of the dangerous ingredients in Roundup) that shouldn’t be being used anyway. Tropical spiderwort is easily confused with Virginia buttonweed. Both are controlled the same way.

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