Pictured here is a Prairie Spiderwort, Tradescantia occidentalis. It belongs to the Spiderwort family, Commelinaceae. There are 14 different species of spiderworts found in Texas, six of them are found only in Texas.
I took this picture because I don’t regularly find spiderworts in sandy open situations like you see here. They are usually part of a grassland ecosystem and they are surrounded by many other plant that make a photograph like this impossible.
The grass like leaves and the three petal flowers are useful characters for distinguishing these plants from others. I love their blue color and I have seen other spiderworts with purple or lavender flowers. This picture was taken in the Fort Worth area and I have seen only one other kind of spiderwort in that area. Tradescantia ohioensis, known as the Bluejacket Spiderwort, is easily distinguished from T. occidentalis by looking at the sepals covering the unopened flower. If the sepals look fuzzy all over, you are looking at T. occidentalis. Conversely, T. ohioensis will have smooth sepals with tufts of hair at their tips.
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