Tradescantia spathacea
species of plant
Tradescantia spathacea, also called the oyster plant, boatlily or 'Moses-in-the-cradle', is an herb in the Commelinaceae family which was first described in 1788. It is native to Central America.
The plant's common name "Moses in the Cradle" is due to its small, white flowers within a boat-shaped, purple bract that resembles a cradle, which is a visual resemblance to the biblical story of Moses in the bulrushes, where he was placed in a basket.
Description
Tradescantia spathacea has fleshy rhizomes and rosettes of waxy lance-shaped leaves. Leaves are dark to metallic green above, with glossy purple underneath. These will reach up to 0.30 m (1 ft) long by 76 mm (3 in) wide. They are foliage plants that reach a height of around 0.30 m (1 ft). The short-stemmed perennial shrub grows in a dense clump and forms a rosette of thick, lanceolate or linear leaves, about 30 cm long and 7 cm wide, facing upward, which are dark green above and purple below. The color of the underside is due to certain pigments, anthocyanins. Some varieties, such as 'vittata', have longitudinal yellow stripes on the upper side of the leaf.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tradescantia spathacea” is species of plant. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tradescantia, spathacea and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tradescantia spathacea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.