Details
| Full name | Tradescantia virginiana ‘Congesta’. |
| Name status | Accepted, the valid name for a unique cultivar. Established by Moench (1794, p. 238). Because it was published before 1959, the Latin name can be accepted (Brickell et al., 2016, Art. 21.11). It was originally spelled ‘Congestum’, but the grammatical gender is corrected to match the genus (Brickell et al., 2016, Art. 21.8). |
| Origins | Unknown. |
| Classification | Originally published as the species Ephemerum congestum (Moench, 1794, p. 238). This is now considered a botanical synonym for Tradescantia virginiana (POWO, 2022), so the plant is treated as a cultivar with the same name (Brickell et al., 2016, Art. 21.5). |
| Legal protection | None. |
| Availability | Probably lost from cultivation, it was last documented in a specimen at the RHS Wisley Herbarium (“Tradescantia virginiana”, 1953). |
Description
Described by Loudon (1839, p. 601) and Bailey (1917, p. 3364).
| Species | Tradescantia virginiana. |
| Flowers | Crowded, purple. |
References
Moench, C. (1794). Methodus plantas horti botanici et agri Marburgensis :a staminum situ describendi [Method of describing the plants of the botanical garden and the field of Marburg]. Biodiversity Heritage Library link.
Loudon, J. C. (1839). Loudon’s Hortus Britannicus: A Catalogue of All The Plants Indigenous, Cultivated in, or Introduced to Britain. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
Bailey, L. H. (1917). The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. The Macmillan Company.
“Tradescantia virginiana”. (1953). [Herbarium specimen, barcode WSY0064431]. RHS Wisley Herbarium.
Brickell, C. D., Alexander, C., Cubey, J. J., David, J. C., Hoffman, M. H. A., Leslie, A. C., Malécot, V., Jin, X. (2016). International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants. PDF link.
POWO. (2022). Ephemerum congestum. Plants of the World Online. Link.