Purple heart - Tradescantia pallida

Common Name :	Purple secretia, Purple heart, Purple queen.
Botanical Name :	Tradescantia pallida
Synonym :	Setcreasea pallida
Family :	Commelinaceae
Photo Taken :	Bangladesh

There are lot of common names available for this flower, such as Purple secretia, Purple-heart, Purple queen, Wandering jew, etc. Botanical name of the flowering plant is Tradescantia pallida. It belongs to the plant family Commelinaceae. This plant is native to Mexico. Since it grows well in sun, later it did spread in tropical and sub tropical area.

Purple heart (Tradescantia pallida) is an evergreen plant perennial plant. During winter the plant may die, but after winter it flourishes with new leafs from the roots. The plant is a sprawling ground covering plant. Pointy leafs are slightly long and one inch wide. Color of the leaf (or plant) can be greenish-purple to purple depending upon the availability of sunlight.

Stem of the plant is very soft. It can get broken easily, specially from trampling. But the plant is a very fast growing one, which helps it to recover from it. People usually put this plant as a bed to cover an area (i.e. at the divider of the road, bed in garden, bed in roundabout, etc). People mostly choose the plant because of the colorful foliage rather than the flowers.

Purple heart (Tradescantia pallida) flowers are not that much showy as the flowers are small and also purple color. They can easily remain inconspicuous with the backdrop of purplish leafs. Small flowers are having thee petals. They can be in pink, purple or white in color. Flowers born from the tip of the stems.

Flowers are sterile, which means they usually do not bring fruits. That's why the propagation is done from the roots or cutting. During the warm weather the plant brings flowers continuously.

Photos Purple heart (Tradescantia pallida) were taken from the following location of Bangladesh:
1. November 2015: Dhaka.


This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icflora.blogspot.com/