Tradescantia occidentalis(Britton) Smyth

prairie spiderwort

WFO wfo-0000589300 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Tradescantia occidentalis, photographed by Bob Walker
fig. a Bob Walker, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-04 / obs. 203540186
Tradescantia occidentalis, photographed by Shalana Gray
fig. b Shalana Gray, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201726345
Tradescantia occidentalis, photographed by Alexandre Passos
fig. c Alexandre Passos, CC0 1.0 / obs. 199776348
Tradescantia occidentalis, photographed by Darrin Gobble
fig. d Darrin Gobble, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197962903
Tradescantia occidentalis, photographed by Bobby McCabe
fig. e Bobby McCabe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152932642
Tradescantia occidentalis, photographed by Bobby McCabe
fig. f Bobby McCabe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145911680
Tradescantia occidentalis, photographed by Reid Hardin
fig. g Reid Hardin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 143393290
Tradescantia occidentalis, photographed by Philip Stepnowski
fig. h Philip Stepnowski, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 162288291

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 23 botanical countries

Regions where Tradescantia occidentalis is native: Alberta, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Manitoba, Mexico Northwest, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming AlbertaArizonaArkansasColoradoIowaKansasLouisianaManitobaMexico NorthwestMinnesotaMontanaNebraskaNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth DakotaOklahomaSaskatchewanSouth DakotaTexasUtahWisconsinWyoming
Native distribution of Tradescantia occidentalis, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
Arizona ARI
Arkansas ARK
Colorado COL
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Louisiana LOU
Manitoba MAN
Mexico Northwest MXN
Minnesota MIN
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
New Jersey NWJ
New Mexico NWM
New York NWY
North Dakota NDA
Oklahoma OKL
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Texas TEX
Utah UTA
Wisconsin WIS
Wyoming WYO

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 397 in flower of 420 examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Tradescantia occidentalis observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 397 of 420 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 8 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Tradescantia laramiensis Goodd.
  • Tradescantia occidentalis var. typica E.S.Anderson & Woodson
  • Tradescantia ramifera Lunell
  • Tradescantia ramifera var. chandonnetii Lunell
  • Tradescantia scopulorum Rose
  • Tradescantia universitatis Cockerell
  • Tradescantia vaginata Bush
  • Tradescantia virginiana var. occidentalis Britton

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.