This just popped up in one patio garden this year. No clue where it came from. It is even spreading onto the concrete. It looks very familier, but can't put a name to it.

Looks like Callisia repens to me: Inch Plant (Callisia repens) I used to have it covering a flower bed at our other house. Originally was a hanging basket houseplant and pieces got out of the basket. I transplanted some behind our shed and it made a nice groundcover ... lived for quite a few years until being frozen two consecutive winters.

It's a Callisia, but whether or not it's C. repens is debatable. I have the same plant I've been trying to ID for almost 3 years. The problem is that there are no reliable pictures of some of the other species. If it is the same as the one I have, it should be coming into flower. Are the tips starting to stick straight up in the air?

I had C. repens growing as a ground cover in a few places for @ 10 - 12 years; some tips stuck straight up while others were more prostrate, leaves were variable in shape/size too depending on full sun, full shade etc. ... I never saw a single flower; maybe because they are tiny and I just missed them.

some tips stick up. I will have to look to see if there are and buds/flowers..right now it's raining so will check after it stops

I've also got some of this coming up 'everywhere'. It's blooming this morning even after hubby mowed yesterday! I always thought it was some type of Tradescantia. But in this case, I believe it tends to be a late summer, early fall annual weed.

Tara...your's reminds me of Asiatic Dayflower

I agree, Tara's plant looks like Asiatic Dayflower (Commelina communis)

Ohhh, how 'bout that!
After looking through some plant files, I thought it did look similar to Day flower. And I've learned that these are all in the same family. Commelinaceae... Interesting!

Just looked...no sign of buds or blooms. Looks to be pretty tough though as Dixie has rolled her BIG ball over the parts on the concrete

Terra, there are a couple other Commelinas that are native and look just like C. communis, C. erecta and C. diffusa.

The flowers don't come out every day, but I "caught" one pot with this stuff in it with the blooms out earlier today. It's overcast, cooler, rained yesterday.



I would love to know what species this is too!

Ginger, curious if you're seeing the tips turn into flower-parts on this stuff at all? I have this blooming one in a lot of pots, and most of the stems have developed the flower parts. The other kind, with darker leaves that are purple on the back, not as pointed, thinner in texture, are not doing this. Forgot to ask if the back of the leaves of your plant are purple or green?

Of course in the one pot that has both easily visible, the one that blooms is taking the longest to form its' blooms. You can see the light green chunk of the one that blooms, compared to the darker, less pointed leaves of the other one.




The one that blooms is the same color on the back, the other is purplish on the back.



Finally getting good pics this year but have been convinced for a while these are 2 different plants. The one I've always thought was C. repens is the one that doesn't bloom. I've had it before in OH also, the darker green, less pointed leaf one, always labeled C. repens. C. repens usually disappears for winter, I think though it may just be lost under leaves, not totally sure since it's taken a while to get some decent patches of it going the way I constantly take cuttings. This blooming plant stays evergreen, in a pot or in the ground, the past couple winters anyway. I would love to know what the other one is.

I will check it out tomorrow and hopefully be able to answer your questions

Well all i can figure it is certainly a spiderwort, probally a invasive species in florida

Hithere, TG. Actually, all Tradescantias are native of the Americas. One can debate which area they may or may not have inhabited at a certain point in time, but plants do creep on their own and are 'moved' by animals, storms, as well as being moved around by people, so I'm not sure about calling something native to Mexico invasive in TX, for example.

But the Callisias are not all thought to be native, though many are of dubious, debated origins, and as a whole, this is a mysterious group of plants because of the lack of info readily available. That would also explain the confusion over the origins of some - hard to decide that if the ID is still in question. Without a magnifying glass and checklist of characteristics, they look alike, but when there's different colored and shaped leaves, and the presence of flowers on one and not the other, that's a lot of difference. C. repens does bloom, but not abundantly and regularly like this other plant. When it does, it looks identical. USDA plants database has no pics and says C. repens is native to Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico but introduced in the lower 48. They completely ignore Mexico, so I don't consider C. repens not native, especially with all of the confusion about the ID, though some purists might.

I've put a lot of hours into trying to ID this plant, and get a handle on Callisias in general. I've not found a single reliable resource with comprehensive info about them, except in writing, those paragraphs of abbreviated jargon that I don't understand. Tracing the origins of the few pics found at supposedly reliable resources is usually maddening since the same image will be shown on a multitude of sites. Writing to the professors, scientists, webmasters, usually results in finding out that nobody knows who took the pic, or when, or where...

It's likely that Gin's plant is the same "not C. repens." I got this plant from DH's Mom's yard. Then I noticed the little mom'n'pop store that sells plants had made a weak effort to use some of this stuff on a wire topiary frame, and bits of it are in many of their pots, and the ground around the plant stand tables. After curiosity has gotten to this level, I've seen it other places NOT in pots as a 'house plant.' It's around readily up here, so I imagine its' survival farther south would be even more spectacular.

Smiles!

I was going to say Tradescanta fulminensis, but they have white 3 petaled flowers. The term i meant was aggressive,not invasive

purpleinopp said:Hithere, TG. Actually, all Tradescantias are native of the Americas. One can debate which area they may or may not have inhabited at a certain point in time, but plants do creep on their own and are 'moved' by animals, storms, as well as being moved around by people, so I'm not sure about calling something native to Mexico invasive in TX, for example.

But the Callisias are not all thought to be native, though many are of dubious, debated origins, and as a whole, this is a mysterious group of plants because of the lack of info readily available. That would also explain the confusion over the origins of some - hard to decide that if the ID is still in question. Without a magnifying glass and checklist of characteristics, they look alike, but when there's different colored and shaped leaves, and the presence of flowers on one and not the other, that's a lot of difference. C. repens does bloom, but not abundantly and regularly like this other plant. When it does, it looks identical. USDA plants database has no pics and says C. repens is native to Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico but introduced in the lower 48. They completely ignore Mexico, so I don't consider C. repens not native, especially with all of the confusion about the ID, though some purists might.

I've put a lot of hours into trying to ID this plant, and get a handle on Callisias in general. I've not found a single reliable resource with comprehensive info about them, except in writing, those paragraphs of abbreviated jargon that I don't understand. Tracing the origins of the few pics found at supposedly reliable resources is usually maddening since the same image will be shown on a multitude of sites. Writing to the professors, scientists, webmasters, usually results in finding out that nobody knows who took the pic, or when, or where...

It's likely that Gin's plant is the same "not C. repens." I got this plant from DH's Mom's yard. Then I noticed the little mom'n'pop store that sells plants had made a weak effort to use some of this stuff on a wire topiary frame, and bits of it are in many of their pots, and the ground around the plant stand tables. After curiosity has gotten to this level, I've seen it other places NOT in pots as a 'house plant.' It's around readily up here, so I imagine its' survival farther south would be even more spectacular.

Smiles!

I was referring to spiderworts in general, but I believe it is Callisia repens, or as I said, T. fulminensis I Even more nomenclature confusion

terrafirma said:I've also got some of this coming up 'everywhere'. It's blooming this morning even after hubby mowed yesterday! I always thought it was some type of Tradescantia. But in this case, I believe it tends to be a late summer, early fall annual weed.

this is a very common weed in my climate too

The dayflower i think is native to parts of asia, it was probally introduced. I usually let it go unless it gets out of hand, and it often does