Purple Rocket
Iodanthus pinnatifidus
Found in rich forests of bottomlands and lower slopes, bottomland fields. Weakley, Flora of the Southeastern United States (2025), Northern Tier edition What its natural habitat tells you
Native to West Virginia. How scores work Is it native here?
Profile 59%
- Height
- 1–3 feet
- Spread
- 1–2 feet
- Light
- Part shade to full shade
- Soil moisture
- Average to moist
Space about 1.5 ft apart from its recorded spread, about 44 per 100 sq ft. Enter your bed size for a count
Will it fit your yard?No photograph yet. Looking for an old drawing…
Rare or protected plant. Specialist conservation planting; excluded from routine garden suggestions. Plant caution source
Hidden from default planting suggestions. Wildlife value and native status remain unchanged.
At a glance
- Life cycle
- Perennial
Not yet recorded · Leaves · Bloom
This plant is missing most of its facts, so Quercus is looking them up in old botany books.
Recorded in 1 West Virginia county.
Natural habitats
Places it grows wild. Not a planting requirement. Each habitat page lists the plants and wildlife also found there.
Forests on moist but not wet ground, such as rich slopes and ravines.
Floodplain and bottomland forests
Forests on low ground beside rivers and streams that flood from time to time.
Roadsides, fields and disturbed ground
Ground opened by people: roadsides, old fields, pastures, fencerows and lots.
Who uses this plant?
0CaterpillarsGenus host records with ranges including WV
0BeesSoutheastern regional records
0Specialist beesPollen specialists
—BirdsRecorded genus food-resource interactions; not a state feeding claimNo records yet · Ants · Beetles · Flies · Adult butterflies / moths · Other wasps · Other insects
Plant details
- Family
- Brassicaceae
- Hardiness
- Zones 4–8
- Flower color
- White, pink or purple
Growing sources and scope
- Flower color · “White, pink or purple” · Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
- Hardiness · “Zones 4–8” · Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder
- Height · “1–3 feet” · Tennessee Smart Yards (ranked first; Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Minnesota Wildflowers differ) · Published Tennessee growing guidance; exact cached scientific heading
- Life cycle · “Perennial” · Minnesota Wildflowers
- Light · “Part shade to full shade” · Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder
- Soil · “moderately wet to medium” · Tennessee Smart Yards (ranked first; Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder differs) · Published Tennessee growing guidance; exact cached scientific heading
- Spread · “1–2 feet” · Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder
Conservation status
| West Virginia rank | S1 |
|---|---|
| Global rank | Not available |
| WV status | Not verified |
| Federal status | Not verified |
Will it fit your yard?
Check this plant against your county, sun and soil moisture. Conditions are checked in your browser.
Sources
- Weakley, Flora of the Southeastern United States (2025), South Central edition
- NatureServe Explorer
- West Virginia occurrence source
- Shropshire & Tallamy 2025, Lepidoptera of North America north of Mexico, ZooKeys 1261 (ODbL)
- Noori, Seltmann & Orr 2026, A curated and integrated dataset for exploring global bee-plant interactions (GloBI), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Smith, Bachelder, Russell, Morales, Mosher & Seltmann 2024, Bee-Specialization-Modeling v0.6.1 (specialist host table compiled from J. Fowler's pollen specialist bee lists), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Hurlbert, Olsen, Sawyer & Winner 2021, Avian Diet Database, Scientific Data 8: 260 (CC0)
- Narango, Tallamy & Shropshire 2020, Few keystone plant genera support the majority of Lepidoptera species, Nature Communications