Tradescantia L. Commellinaceae. Distribution: North America. Introduced into Britain between 1616 and 1629 by John Tradescant the Elder (d 1638) and named after him and his son. He was gardener to King Charles I and travelled, collecting plants in Russia, Algiers and Egypt, maintaining a garden and museum in London. The younger John Tradescant (1608-1662) succeeded his father as gardener to Charles I, collected mostly in America and brought back some 90 new plants. Their museum was the basis of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. They are buried in the churchyard of St Mary's next to Lambeth Palace, London. They would have known my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Richard Oakeley (1590-1653) Solicitor and Receiver General to Westminster Abbey at the time of Charles I and the Commonwealth, sometime churchwarden at St. Mary's.

Syn. =Tradescantia purpurea