Abstract
UNTIL recently the name Tradescantia virginiana, of Linnæus, was made to include a multitude of forms, without discrimination. However, as we go from east to west we observe a marked change in the spiderworts, corresponding with an equally marked change in climate. The more eastern forms of moist regions are tall and rank, with bright green foliage. The true virginiana has the pedicels and sepals villous, the hairs not glandular, and does not in any way suggest a xerophyte. In the middle west are two forms, T. occidentalis (Britton), bright green, but with narrow leaves and usually smaller flowers, the pedicels and sepals with gland-tipped hairs, and T. reflexa, Raf., glaucous, the pedicels glabrous, the sepals with a tuft of hairs at the apex. The latter is more especially southern, and is said to extend even to Florida. Still further west we find in New Mexico another form, T. scopulorum, of Rose, slender and much branched, glaucous, with glabrous pedicels and, smooth sepals. Still again, we have in Colorado a distinct plant, which I have named T. universitatis.1 This is strongly glaucous, robust, but not very tall, pedicels glabrous, with a very few gland-hairs, sepals glandular-pilose. The leaves are broad (the sheathing bases 12 mm. to 13 mm. wide), and the flowers are about 35 mm. across. There is no sign of any tuft of hairs at the apex of the sepals.
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COCKERELL, T. The Evolution of the Colorado Spiderwort. Nature 75, 7 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/075007b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/075007b0
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