Wright'S Spiderwort

Description

Herbs, erect or ascending, rarely rooting at nodes. Stems unbranched, 5--18 cm. Leaves: blade linear-lanceolate, 4--10 - 0.2--0.5 cm (distal leaf blades equal to or narrower than sheaths when sheaths opened, flattened), firmly membranaceous to subsucculent, glaucous or glaucescent, glabrous. Inflorescences terminal, solitary; bracts foliaceous. Flowers distinctly pedicillate; pedicels 1.2--1.7 cm, with few to many minute glandular hairs (or glabrous); sepals glaucous or glaucescent, 0.5--0.6 cm, glabrous or with a few minute glandular hairs at base; petals distinct, rose to magenta or purple, broadly ovate, not clawed, 1 cm; stamens free; filaments bearded. Capsules 3--4 mm. Seeds 2--3 mm. N = 6. Flowering spring--fall (May--Sep). Moist canyon stream banks; N.Mex., Tex.; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila). Tradescantia wrightii var. glandulopubescens was described for Mexican plants with glandular-pubescent pedicels and sepals (B. L. Turner 1983), and this variety was listed for Texas (B. L. Turner 1993; S. L. Hatch et al. 1990). All U.S. collections that I have examined, however, including the holotype of T. wrightii, have at least some glandular hairs on these parts. Marshall Johnson believes that this is a valid variety, and I may not have examined typical specimens, but the diagnosis is not differential from the typical variety.