The spiderworts are near the end of their flowering period. These members of the Commelinaceae family have flowered for a very long period, producing a small flower from numerous buds, each opening for only one day. Intriguing plants, there are 70 species all told which include perennials, annuals and short lived herbs.

The best known garden plants are derived from the species T. virginiana, a native of Virginia with a notable past and historical ties to England. Named after a keen plantsman, there were three John Tradescants, two of which were self taught botanists. They lived their lives in England during the seventeenth century and went on many plant excursions to other parts of the world.

The elder Tradescant (1570-1638) concentrated his plant collecting in Europe with trips to Paris, Russia, and Algiers. Working for nobility, his title as official plant collector allowed him access to nurseries and private estates. A few of the many plants traced back to the eldest John include Gladiolus byzantinus, Syringia persica (lilac), narsissus, crocus, and jasmine. His son John Tradescant (1608-62) the younger, followed in his father's footsteps, having spent much of his life working with his fathers collection, he was prepared for a trip to the new world, seeking unusual plants to bring home. Three trips brought him here to Virginia, all in the seventeenth century - 1637, 1642, and 1654, funded by Charles I. Arriving only 17 years after the pilgrims had come ashore in New England, the younger John was interested in plants other than herbs, vegetables or fruit bearing trees and shrubs, the one thing that had driven plant collecting from its earliest years. The collecting of plants in England meant herbs as the contemporary English garden housed medicinal and culinary herbs with flowering plants rarely allotted space. In the context of gardening at the time it was the botanists interest to hunt plants and classify them; the gardeners to hunt them and cultivate them; the apothecary's to hunt and utilize them. It was this period in the seventeenth century when the gardening public began to divorce itself from medicine and physic gardens primarily due to John Parkinson's publication "Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris", a publication that was devoted entirely to garden plants rather than medicinal herbs.

Given the numerous trips afforded the younger John Tradescant to Virginia, his plant introductions included lupins, cornflowers, Michaelmas daisies, monarda, Virginia creeper, swamp cypress, red maple, Canadian columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), tulip poplar, poison ivy, and tradescantia. Both his fathers and John's fondness for new and unique natural curiosities became a large museum complete with plants, shells, insects, and animals.

This intriguing story of a father and son that devoted so much to the history of plant collecting gives me a new found respect for the only plant that bears their name. The new, modern day hybrids bear little resemblance to the wild form, but I'm sure that a modern day John Tradescant would collect each and every hybrid available. He would carefully tend them and record their blooming periods, their ability to produce viable seed, and their ease of cross pollination. His time would probably be spent creating a better tradescantia.