(c) Juan Carlos Caicedo Hernández, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2023-04-24Tradescantia cerinthoides Kunth
Waxy Spiderwort, flowering inch plant
Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.
Summary
Tradescantia cerinthoides, commonly called flowering inch plant, is a species of plant in the family Commelinaceae that is native to south east Brazil to north east Argentina. Described in 1843 by the German botanist, Carl Sigismund Kunth. The pink tipped white flowers and green purplish foliage are appealing features to gardeners. This plant is used in many parts of the world as an ornamental, and can become an invasive species.
Text from Wikipedia, “Tradescantia cerinthoides”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.
About the genus · Tradescantia
Tradescantia is a genus of 85 species of herbaceous perennial wildflowers in the family Commelinaceae, native to the Americas from southern Canada to northern Argentina, including the West Indies. Members of the genus are known by many common names, including inchplant, wandering jew, wandering dude, spiderwort, dayflower and trad.
Text from Wikipedia, “Tradescantia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.
At a glance
Also known as Tradescantia blossfeldiana Mildbr.; Tradescantia cymbispatha var. villosissima C.B.Clarke; Tradescantia koernickeana Seub.
Cultivation
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Tradescantia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.
Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to September and November in the northern hemisphere).
This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.
The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (1086 mm of 1510 mm) takes 8 months, September to March and May. Mean temperature moves 10.0 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: March to September and November.
Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.
Rain Habitat rain 1510 mm a year, wettest January at 151 mm, driest August at 91 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
1510 mm a year at the habitat, 1086 mm of it September to March and May. Wettest month January at 151 mm, driest August at 91 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1062 mm to 2018 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).
CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.
Light Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 42 mol/m²/day.
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 42 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 13, the highest 90th-percentile month 48).
CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.
Warmth and air Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 1.8 °C habitat night).
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 1.8 °C, the absolute minimum -3.9 °C, about 2 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 8.5 °C in July (across the envelope cells 6.8 °C to 11.4 °C), warmest day 26.3 °C in January (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12 °C. The habitat figure, the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER), is 1.8 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a tropical foliage plant (grouped by the genus Tradescantia, which is reliably one kind of plant) is 12 °C, which is higher, and the floor rule takes the higher.
NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 62 to 64% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.
CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.
The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.
Climate across the habitat
Figures by month
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 26 / 25–29 | 26 / 24–28 | 25 / 23–27 | 22 / 20–25 | 19 / 17–21 | 18 / 14–20 | 17 / 13–19 | 19 / 14–21 | 20 / 16–22 | 22 / 18–24 | 23 / 21–26 | 25 / 24–28 |
| Night °C | 19 / 17–21 | 19 / 17–21 | 17 / 16–20 | 15 / 13–17 | 12 / 10–14 | 9 / 8–12 | 9 / 7–11 | 10 / 8–12 | 11 / 9–14 | 13 / 11–16 | 15 / 13–17 | 17 / 15–19 |
| Rain mm | 151 / 91–238 | 147 / 94–199 | 123 / 91–160 | 111 / 89–157 | 119 / 79–145 | 107 / 55–162 | 115 / 56–175 | 91 / 56–137 | 146 / 64–187 | 139 / 98–194 | 128 / 92–169 | 133 / 78–193 |
| DLI | 40 / 35–47 | 36 / 34–40 | 32 / 30–33 | 24 / 22–26 | 19 / 16–21 | 16 / 13–19 | 17 / 15–21 | 22 / 20–26 | 27 / 25–29 | 33 / 31–36 | 39 / 35–43 | 42 / 36–48 |
| RH % | 63 / 58–68 | 64 / 60–68 | 63 / 60–68 | 63 / 61–67 | 63 / 62–66 | 64 / 63–66 | 63 / 62–65 | 62 / 60–64 | 63 / 60–65 | 63 / 59–67 | 62 / 59–66 | 62 / 58–66 |
Each figure is the median across the 109 grid cells holding the 123 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2324:2578 (-26.225, -51.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -3.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 1.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.0 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 109 distinct grid cells holding the 123 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2324:2578 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -26.00_-51.250, lapse-corrected -233 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 760 m (cell mean).
Natural habitat
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Codrin Bucur, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Chase Mathey, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Paul Bell-Butler, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).
Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.
Papers naming this species
Works whose title or abstract names Tradescantia cerinthoides, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.
Related
Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.
Sinningia macrostachya Gesneriaceae
Callianthe megapotamica Trailing Abutilon
Tradescantia fluminensis Small-leaf Spiderwort
Parodia linkii Cactaceae
Parodia haselbergii scarlet ball cactus
Araucaria angustifolia Brazilian-pineOther Tradescantia 7 in the reference
Tradescantia fluminensis Small-leaf Spiderwort
Tradescantia ohiensis Confederate spiderwort
Tradescantia pallida "Wandering Jew"
Tradescantia sillamontana Wooly Spiderwort
Tradescantia spathacea Boatlily
Tradescantia virginiana Spider Lily
Tradescantia zebrina Inchplant History & registers
Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)wcvp.distribution answeredgbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zamclimate answeredwikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skippedinat.taxon not askedinat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skippedinat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)gbif.media answeredopenalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skippedEvery upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 46 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.







