low growing purple mystery flower

[wsmoak]

Okay, here's another purple flower (must be the week for that color!):

The leaves grow kind of like daylilies, except they're fuzzy, and the flower is like a violet.

They grow in the same places as the wild atamasco lilies -- low wet meadows, stream banks.

Closeup of the flowers

-Wendy

 

[Mattemma]

I don't know what they are,but I think they are pretty. Ofcourse I am one to let just about anything grow in the grass that has nice flowers!

 

[AmyRey]

I do actually know what that one is! Yay!

We call them spider worts here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradescantia

 

[lesa]

Yes, spider wort is what we call them...

 

[hoodat]

It's obviously in the iris family. I'd hazard a guess they are a wild type of Louisiana iris.

 

[April Manier]

It looks like Tillansia.

I could be spelling that wrong. It was in my plant ID class 15 years ago!!!!

 

[RustyDHart]

I've always called it "Spiderwort"....we have it here in the beds in 5-6 color varieties.

 

[patandchickens]

Absolutely 100% beyond doubt that is tradescantia (spiderwort). T. virginiana, presumably. It is a wildflower in many parts of the US including the o.p.'s state; although there are also showy garden cultivars that have been developed.

It is not Tillandsia (an epiphytic bromeliad sometimes grown as a houseplant) b/c the only wild species of that genus in Georgia is spanish moss Also the flowers are wrong, Tillandsia has showy bracts (not usually *that* showy though!) with insignificant short-lived flowers in them.

It is not an iris b/c, well, because it's Tradescantia instead LOL but the horizontal rather than vertical axis of the leaves is also a tipoff, also the flower being 3 rather than 6 parted, also there being leaves that branch off stalks well above the ground (although I suppose I may be seeing this more clearly b/c I know what it is, and the eye might interpret the pic differently if you are thinking iris instead)

Nice plant, the flowers are too short-lived for me to be fond of it as a garden perennial (altho my sister *loves* it), but it is definitely an A-list wildflower

Pat