# Wandering Jew (the plant)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wandering-jew-the-plant/848492>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 25, 2020, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wandering-jew-the-plant/848492 "2020-02-25T14:43:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wandering-jew-the-plant/848492/21 "2020-02-26T18:54:25Z")

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I bought a entire flat of Wandering Jew last year.  
Lowe’s sells it as Purple Heart. But I knew it’s real name.

A great plant that grew really tall last summer. It died after the first frost.

Fingers crossed that it comes back this spring. We had a mild winter and there’s a good chance it survived.

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**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wandering-jew-the-plant/848492/22 "2020-02-26T21:05:15Z")

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The “Purple Heart” variety of Tradescantia is supposedly hardy to zone 7, meaning it might survive a winter low in the low teens, depending on location, mulching etc.

As for names, my rule of thumb is that if one is offensive to most or even a substantial minority of an an ethnic or religious group, then it might be a good idea not to use it, whether or not you have anecdotal evidence of a group member \* not \* taking offense. You could probably have found black people in the 1940s who said they didn’t care about someone naming a black dog “Nigger”.\*

_Yes Virginia, some folks actually did this, and might have been shocked to be viewed as racist._\*  
\*\*There’s an example in Sinclair Lewis’s 1947 book “Kingsblood Royal”, an over-the-top novel about what can go wrong when one does a family ancestry search.

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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wandering-jew-the-plant/848492/23 "2020-02-26T21:22:40Z")

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> [@panache45](#):
>
> This is the one my grandma used to grow. She was VERY Jewish, and never expressed being offended by the name.

Well, color me surprised. As an Australian American, I’d be slightly unimpressed by an Australian garden plant called “The Yankee” or “American Tourist” but around here most garden plants are introduced species.

What was her background? I’d have thought many people her age would have been aware of the NAZI film normally translated as “The Eternal Jew” [The Eternal Jew (film) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eternal_Jew_(1940_film))

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**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wandering-jew-the-plant/848492/24 "2020-02-27T14:26:29Z")

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> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I bought a entire flat of Wandering Jew last year.  
> Lowe’s sells it as Purple Heart. But I knew it’s real name.
> 
> A great plant that grew really tall last summer. It died after the first frost.
> 
> Fingers crossed that it comes back this spring. We had a mild winter and there’s a good chance it survived.

The tradscanti that are native make it through the Winter in Arkansas. The spiderwort in my front yard is already putting out leaves.

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