100 More species #15: Spiderwort

[urbpan]

Spiderwort Tradescantia virginiana

Last year when I did the first 100 species in my yard, I skipped past this one (despite the kind readers of this journal identifying it for me). I simply assumed it was "just" a cultivated flower, and that it wasn't interesting as a member of the community of organisms in my yard. Since then I have come to learn that not only is it a native plant, it will run roughshod around the yard if you let it, which we kind of did.

It's not a wildflower as such: it certainly owes its ubiquity in part to the cultivated plant trade. Ours may be a hybrid developed for extra hardiness, or color variety, or some other attribute. We've dug out a bunch of them, transplanted some to along the fence lines, and basically gotten over any shyness about killing them. Despite being native, it acts like any invasive Eurasian plant--there's even a few growing from the sidewalk cracks down the street.


I'm happy to have it in some places in the yard, but I'm also happy to get rid of it in favor of variety and biodiversity in our little corner of the world. (Notice it keeping company with Japanese knotweed, in the bucket on it's way out of our land).