Texas Spiderwort

About the Texas Spiderwort

Texas Spiderwort is a morning flower - each three-petaled bloom of saturated blue-violet opens in the cool early hours and wilts to a watery blob by afternoon sun, an entire flowering told in half a day. The plant hedges its bets with clusters of buds that open a few at a time, keeping a colony in color for weeks each spring.

It is a true Texan, a near-endemic spiderwort of prairies, roadsides, and open woods on the state's sandy and rocky soils, blooming March through May in the same season and often the same fields as bluebonnets and paintbrush. The grass-like leaves and jointed, fleshy stems ooze a stringy, mucilaginous sap when cut - the "spider web" strands that likely named the whole spiderwort clan.

The flowers are an early-morning banquet for native bees, especially bumblebees, which work the fuzzy golden anthers hard before the day's heat closes the shop. For a photographer the assignment is built in: this is a species that rewards early light twice over - fresh flowers and soft sun - and by lunch there is nothing left to shoot.