Wild Florida Photo
Nature Photography by Paul Rebmann
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Tradescantia ohiensis
BLUEJACKET
OHIO SPIDERWORT
Florida native
A frequent plant of disturbed sites throughout many Florida counties north of Lake Okeechobee. The range extends from Texas to Minnesota and eastward to the Atlantic through all states except Vermont, and also into Ontario.
Bluejacket flowers are made up of three symetrical blue-violet (rarely white) petals having six stamens with hairy filaments. The filament hairs are made up of a chain of single cells that can be seen with low magnification. The flowers are ephemeral, opening in the morning and fading in the afternoon. The apices of the three sepals have hairy tufts and there are one to three leaflike bracts below the cluster of drooping flowers. Tradescantia ohiensis blooms appear all year in Florida.
The leaves are linear to lanceolate, folded lengthwise and arched, giving the plant the appearance of a spider , leading to one of its common names - spiderwort. The stem stores water, allowing spiderwort to thrive in dry habitats.
Tradescantia ohiensis is a member of the Commelinaceae - Spiderwort family.
Other species of this genus in the Wild Florida Photo database:
View Tradescantia roseolens - LONGLEAF SPIDERWORT
Florida Wildflowers in Their Natural Communities
Walter Kingsley Taylor
Walter Taylor's guide will help readers recognize and identify wildflowers by where they're most likely to be found growing - their natural habitat.This book is the first of its kind for Florida. Taylor provides detailed descriptions and color photos of each community - pine flatwoods, sandhills, upland pine forest, scrub, temperate hardwood forest, coastal uplands, subtropical pine forest, tropical hardwood hammock, and ruderal sites - and of the wildflower species associated with each.
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