Spiderwort

Spiderwort, Ohio Spiderwort, Widow’s Tears Tradescantia ohiensis

Viewed from a historical perspective, the present popularity of planting native plants in gardened landscapes is a relatively new development in America.  

Within certain circles of plant-savvy people it was, and may still be, often said, usually sarcastically, that no American native plant ever received proper recognition in its homeland until it had been to England, given a pedigree by English gardeners and then presented back to Americans as a plant worth knowing about.  

Case in point: while indigenous Americans undoubtedly had their own awareness, uses and names for these plants (as well as all other plants that grew around them), the genus name, Tradescantia, comes from John Tradescant, the younger, who was an English botanist, plant explorer and eventual gardener to Charles I. John Tradescant explored Virginia in a series of trips (at least between 1628 and 1637) and brought back some of these species to England where they became aristocratic members in the gardens of Charles I and Charles II.  

The common name, Spiderwort, has several explanations. Some have it that the three petaled flowers (which can be lighter or darker blue/purple/reddish, even white) resemble a large squatting spider. Another attributes the property of the sap of the plant forming, when a stem is broken open, thin strands like those of a spider’s web. A third likens the thick cluster of wavy hairs found on the stamens of each flower to a spider’s efforts.  

Bees of all sorts nectar on these flowers, and although the blooming period for this perennial is around six weeks, each flower lasts less than one full day. They open pert and eager in the morning but begin wilting long before the end of the day, turning into a jelly-like fluid (which stains, and brings us to the third common name: widow’s tears). On sunny days the longevity of each flower is shorter; it is somewhat longer on gray days.  

This species is very, very similar to Tradescantia virginiana, though a little taller (2-4’) and probably more at home in full sun conditions. It is widely tolerant of sunlight levels, soil types, and self-seeds easily (even in well-established plantings of Japanese pachysandra!). 

Courtesy of Mark Gormel

Senior Manager of Horticulture

Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art (Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania)