Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Tradescantia zebrina

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, Australian Tropical Rainforest key

Flowering carpet. Photographer W L Wagner,  National Tropical Botanical Garden, Hawaii. © Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany

Common name

Silvery Inch Plant

Family

Commelinaceae

Where found

Forest, woodland, urban bushland, disturbed sites, roadsides, and near streams. Coastal north of Kiama.

Notes

Introduced creeping perennial herb, rooting at the nodes, flowering tips turning up. Fleshy. Stems hairless, usually tinged purplish-red. Leaves alternating along the stems, 2.5–7 cm long, 15–30 mm wide, upper surface with broad silvery green stripes, lower surface purple, margins fringed, bases with a sheath, tips pointed. Flowers tubular, the tube 5–9 mm long, with 3 pink to purplish lobes, each about 6 mm long. Flowers in small clusters. Flowers mainly spring–summer.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Tradescantia~zebrina (accessed 23 March, 2021)