My wife got this plant years ago from a friend and have yet to ID it yet. Has purple round stems with puple spike leaves and purple flowers with yellow stamens. It loves the sunlight so it is outside now but cannot take the frost. Its stems are also fragile as they break off easily and will propigate easily from same cuttings. See attached jpeg.
it is a purple heart wandering jew ... i have one growing right now .. they love lots of light .. or the color will fade and get spindly .. and very easy to root from a cutting .. they are a really nice plant .. Marn
Common name for the transcantia (purple plant) is Moses in a Cradle. Yes, it will die down in frost, but here in SC (zone 7) we grow it in the ground, and mulch it well in winter. It comes back each spring bigger and better. Don't know about there in PA...perhaps you could try a small cutting next spring...put it in the ground. Then when it has had all summer to grow, try to mulch it and leave it.Good luck!
Geo .. it is not a Moses in a Boat plant.. this one is different .. it is called a Purple Heart wandering Jew .. the Moses one is not so much of a vine .. but stalkier .. Marn
Yes this looks like Tradescantia pallida, common name--purple heart wandering Jew. Setcreasea pallida is a synonym of Tradescantia pallida. I believe the Moses in a cradle is another plant - Rhoeo spathacea.
Eric La Fountaine Hoping not to confuse this thread further, I found that when searching for Rhoeo spathacea in another thread, that it too was a synonym for Tradescantia spathacea; at least according to the USDA Plants page. Harry
Yes, wrygrass, you are correct. After checking a few of the plant name databases, I agree that the currently accepted name is Tradescantia spathacea, a different species of the genus of the plant in the photo.
Nandan Kalbag wrote GRIN at USDA has Setcreasea purpurea as a synonym for Tradescantia pallida 'Purpurea' So in any case probably talking about the same plant here. {The plant being inquired about originally.} My post above was in reference to the use of Rhoeo spathacea(Moses in a Boat) [Not the subject of this thread] in one of Eric's posts. I had just found it also to have been placed in the Tradescantia genus. Harry
