This is Tradescantia pallida 'Pale Puma'

@Rica47, thank you! I will submit proposals to move my photos to the correct database entry!

Where were these pics before?

They were at the entry for Inch Plant (Tradescantia cerinthoides) which is odd because my folder on my laptop with these pictures is labeled T. pallida 'Pale Puma'. I hope I haven't screwed up some of my other Tradescantia photo entries.

Interesting! What color are the blooms?

I don't remember the exact bloom shade, kinda pinkish similar to those of T. cerinthoides but no white that I remember; I don't have this plant anymore, it was left when we moved. When grown in bright shade, the leaves were green but when grown in high light with a lot of sun, they turned really red. I don't have any bloom photo but you can see the bud in this picture:


And different shots of the leaves:

Is part of the description of 'Pale Puma' that its' leaves are much shorter than regular T. pallida? This does not look like a pale version of T. pallida to me, but I've never investigated what the alleged cultivar 'Pale Puma' is supposed to look like. None of the 4 pics in the 'Pale Puma' entry at the moment look like versions of T. pallida to me.

When the discussion about the difference between regular species T. pallida vs. alleged cultivars 'Purpurea' and 'Purple Heart' was had, nobody ever did offer a comparison showing how they are different from the regular species. If the cultivars are given names indicating they are more purple than the regular species, 'Pale Puma' might be the plain species, and not a cultivar at all. Without the benefit of any example of the non-cultivar, regular species, I maintain that the cultivar names are just common names punctuated incorrectly.

Tiffany, I'm getting more and more confused with this one. I acquired this plant 3 years ago, it was left by the former homeowners when we purchased the house. This Tradescantia has wider, shorter, more rounded leaves than the species T. pallida and I've grown it in both deep shade (where the leaves stay green) as well as bright sun (where the leaves turn reddish shades) but the leaf shape and leaf length has not changed. It also has a fuzzy pubescence to the leaves which I don't think pallida does; at least the T. pallida I've grown in the past always had long, narrow leaves with a glabrous surface.

Maybe the DB entry for 'Pale Puma' needs to be deleted and the photos moved to the general Tradescantia entry? I'm not sure if we have a specific administrator who handles the Tradescantia database so @zuzu @Calif_Sue @KentPfeiffer or @eclayne will have to decide what is best with this one.

I searched on line for T. 'Pale Puma' and Pale Puma Spiderwort but information is quite limited:

RHS states that 'Pale Puma' is a tentatively accepted name: https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/...

This UK nursery has listing for a cultivar 'Pale Puma':
http://www.shrublandparknurser...

It's listed here with the common name Pale Puma Spiderwort and cultivar Pale Puma
http://www.plantstogrow.com/P/...

Listed here as Tradescantia 'Greenlee' (Pale Puma Spiderwort) https://www.smgrowers.com/prod...

Listed here as T. Green Lee (Pale Puma Spiderwort)
https://succulentsbox.com/prod...

Has this plant bloomed yet, Lin?

purpleinopp said:Has this plant bloomed yet, Lin?

Tiffany, do you think it's something other than 'Pale Puma'? It gets really pretty reddish shades when grown in high light and stays mostly green when grown in shade but that may be the case with many Tradescantia's. The pot is stuck out in a corner of the yard in bright shade right now. I haven't seen the opened blooms; this is a plant that I don't pay a lot of attention to ... as close as I got was this bud photo in July 2015.


I went out and looked a few minutes ago, no signs of buds or blooms.

Fascinating! TY for the update. IDK what it is, and am still struggling to get a fix on whatever 'Pale Puma' is. In a lot of the pics I find, it looks like maybe a hybrid between T. sillamontana and T. cerinthoides.