Compilation
Ipomoea cairica

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Name

Identification
Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet [family CONVOLVULACEAE ]
Related name
  • Ipomoea cairica

Flora

Entry for Ipomoea cairica [family CONVOLVULACEAE]
Herbarium
South African National Biodiversity Institute, Compton Herbarium, Cape Town (SAM)
Collection
Flora of Southern Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of South Africa, (2003) Author: Dr J.P. Roux
Names
Ipomoea cairica [family CONVOLVULACEAE]
Common names
Convolvulus cairicus L.: 922 (1759b).
Information
Glabrous perennial with tuberous root. Stems up to 1.8 m long, smooth or tuberculate, twining or rarely prostrate. Leaves ovate to orbicular in outline, 30-100 mm wide, deeply palmately dis­sected into 5-7 lanceolate to ovate-elliptic, mucronulate segments; basal lobes often bifid in 5-lobed leaves; petiole 20-60 mm long, usually with pseudostipules resembling leaves but smaller. Peduncles 1- to few-flowered, 5-70 mm long; bracteoles minute; pedicels 12-20 mm long. Sepals subequal, subovate, mucronulate, green with pellucid dots and pale scarious mar­gins; often minutely tuberculate outside, 4-7 mm long. Corolla broadly funnel-shaped, 30-60 mm long, 40-60 mm wide, tube contracted near base, mauve, paler outside and with darker magenta centre (rarely entirely white). Capsule subglobose, 8-12 mm in diameter. Seeds 5-6 mm long, blackish, subglobose, tomentose and with white up to 9 mm long hairs along edges. Flowering time throughout the year.
Habitat
Used medicinally (Watt & Breyer-Brandwijk 1962: 308). Often cultivated (as Messina creep­er), but can also be a weed.
Use
43. Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet, Hortus brittanicus, 1st edn: 287 (1827); Hallier f.: 148 (1893a); Hutch. & Dalziel: 216 (1931); Ooststr.: 542 (1940); Ooststr.: 479 (1953); A.Meeuse: 761 (1957a); Verde: 125 (1963a); Heine: 351 (1963); Gone.: 105, t. 26 (1987); Gone.: 110, t. 24 (1992); Lejoly & Lisowski: 115, t. 16 (1992); Gone.: 34, t. 9 (1996); Retief & P.P.J.Herman: 383 (1997). Iconotype: illus­tration of Convolvulus aegyptius in J.Vesling: 75, fig. s.n. (1638).
Range
Indigenous throughout Africa, also from the eastern Mediterranean region through Asia to Taiwan; naturalised elsewhere as an escape from cultivation. In southern Africa it is record­ed from Botswana (Goncalves 1987: 105), Swaziland and the northern and eastern parts of South Africa. Found in forest, bushveld, wet grassland, at edges of rivers and lakes, also along roadsides, waste places and cultivated ground. Map 66.

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