Commelina benghalensis

Tropical spiderwort, Tropical Spiderwort

Family: Commelinaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Tropical spiderwort is a naturalized annual found in southern California coastal areas in disturbed environments at elevations below 610 meters. Flowering from May to September, this plant produces delicate blue flowers approximately 1 centimeter in diameter with distinctive open blooms on the upper stem. Growing with ascending to decumbent stems that can root at the nodes, it spreads across ground with flexible branching habit. Its leaves are 2 to 9 centimeters long, ovate to lance-elliptic, with wavy margins and distinctive reddish hairs at the leaf sheath tips. The plant produces small fruits 4 to 6 millimeters long, with an ability to generate both open and underground cleistogamous flowers.

Habitat: Disturbed areas

Bloom period: May-Sep

Elevation: < 610 m

Bioregions: SCo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.