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Commelina erecta
A wrinkled papery purple-blue flower about 3cm in width (both petals). It grows close to the ground with tall spiky leaves, visible in back of the flower. There's a third small white petal which I didn't notice and which is barely visible in the picture. The flowers last only 1 day, thus the common name. The yellow things are the stamen, 3 infertile ones above (yellow) and 3 fertile ones below. This is a native plant of North America and is also called Widow's Tears. Family Commelinaceae.
Along the River San Vicente, Chiflón Waterfall Park, Chiapas, Mexico. Forested area, half shade, half sunlight.
It is really interesting is that the type species of this plant (Commelina communis) was named by Linnaeus in 1753 in his first edition of "Species Plantarum" in honor of two Dutch botanists Jan and Caspar Commelijn, with the two blue petals representing the two botanists. C. communis has been used in the Orient both as a medicinal plant and for creating a blue dye and those properties probably apply to C. erecta as well. https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commelin...
Thank you so much Sarah! It was fascinating to learn about this flower and the type species of C. communis.
Spotted on May 30, 2019
Submitted on Jun 21, 2019
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