Tradescantia, whose common name is another of those not-quite lost to history ones: the sap on a cut stem becomes thready, like spider silk. There are two species which readily hybridize. We think this is T. ohiensis. Blooming now and into July. NYCWFW.
NYC Wildflower Week: Spiderwort
3 responses to “NYC Wildflower Week: Spiderwort”
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Great plant, one of my favorites. Parkinson, in publishing the first description of an American Tradescantia in 1629, suggests that spiderworts were so named “because they were found effectual, to cure the poyson of [a] kind of spider… as also of scorpions and other serpents.”
https://archive.org/stream/paradisiinsolepa00parkrich#page/152/mode/2up-
P.S. Always fascinated by these early taxonomic issues, studies, etc.
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Intesting. Probably picking up on some indigenous uses of it?
Backyard and Beyond 
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