Identification: Unidentified Houseplant, Wandering Jew?

A friend gave me this plant and told me it was a purple wandering jew. However, this plant doesn't wander. All of the pictures I look at, shows the wandering jew mostly on the ground or in a hanging basket, but my plant's stems go straight up. It's almost a 1.5 ft high and is still going up. Attached are pictures of the flower it produces and a smaller plant that was grown from the original. Is there another plant similar to the wandering jew that grows up?

 

There are many types of wandering jew. This looks like one to me. I have one (called "rainbow" it's mostly pink and green) and it just flowered, and the flower looks like this one, but it's white instead. If you pinch the new growth, it will make it bushier, and have more off shoots. Also, anywhere you take a joint and push it into the top of the soil (and pin or otherwise hold it down) it will take root from there. I have a "Bolivian wandering jew" that also grows straight up it seems.

 

Tradescantia (pronounced /ˌtrædɨˈskæntiə/), the Spiderworts, is a genus of an estimated 71 species of perennial plants in the family Commelinaceae, ...

Type tradescantia into google and you can see all kinds of wandering jew. As you can see from the above - there are quite a few to choose from.

When I moved from Seattle, WA to San Jose, CA I realized there were other house plants I found more interesting and threw the little, green, leafed, white flowered one I had out under a bush. It happily took root and lived on, but just to the edge of the shade the bush provided.
Have fun! They are very easy to grow. barb

 

Those are nice flowers!

 

Thanks for the info, I suppose my Wandering Jew just doesn't want to wander!

 

I have one similar to that one, the more sun it gets the more colour it has. I took mine out of direct sun and it started to fade to a greenish colour.