Details
| Full name | Tradescantia spathacea (Bantam Group) ‘Dwarf’. |
| Name status | Accepted, the valid name for a unique cultivar. Established with a description by Nursery & Garden Industry Queensland (2011, p. 44). The name was also published much earlier by Phillips (1885, p. 23), but the description is not detailed enough to be certain it refers to the same plant. Also known as:
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| Origins | Unknown, cultivated since at least 1984 (Glasshouse Works, 1984, p. 17). |
| Classification | The species Tradescantia spathacea is sometimes sold under its botanical synonyms Tradescantia discolor, Rhoeo spathacea, and Rhoeo discolor. The Bantam Group is a subset of T. spathacea cultivars with a smaller growth habit than the wild form. |
| Legal protection | None. |
| Availability | Available from many nurseries. Often only labelled with the species, because the full-sized form is not common in cultivation. |
Description
Preserved in a herbarium specimen (“Tradescantia spathacea ‘Dwarf'”, 2023).
Described with reference to the RHS Colour Chart (6th Edition: 2019 reprint).
| Species | Tradecantia spathacea (Bantam Group). |
| Growth habit | Grows as a compact rosette of leaves on a fairly upright stem. Over time – especially in lower light – stems will become too long to support their own weight and start to trail. |
| Foliage | Stems are 4-10mm wide, with internodes 0.5-4cm long, completely hairless. The colour is strong yellow green (143C), but the stem is usually completely covered by the overlapping leaf sheaths. Leaves are very narrow ovals, 10-15cm long and 1.5-3cm wide, completely hairless. The upper surfaces are greyish olive green (NN137A) to moderate olive green (147A) or dark greyish green (N189A). In bright light, the margins become outlined in greyish purple (N77A). The undersides are greyish purple (N187B) to greyish reddish purple (N77C). Sheaths are moderate yellow green (N148B). |
| Flowers | Flowers are extremely rare and have never been observed. |
References
Phillips, J. T. (1885). Sunny Side Spring Catalogue. Internet Archive link.
Glasshouse Works. (1984). [Catalogue]. UC Davis Library.
Nursery & Garden Industry Queensland. (2011). Grow Me Instead: A Guide for Gardeners in Queensland Wet Tropics. Internet Archive link.
Tradescantia spathacea ‘Dwarf’. (2023). [Herbarium specimen, bacode WSY0168562]. RHS Wisley Herbarium.