Ipomoea asarifolia (Desr.) Roem. & Schult.

Global description

Ipomoea asarifolia is a creeping herbaceous perennial plant with branching stems up to several meters in length and rooting at nodes. The stem is cylindrical and hollow. It is an entirely hairless plant, with simple leaves, alternate, often kidney-shaped, cordate base, as wide as long and with long petiole. The flowers are grouped in the axils of the leaves. In the form of a funnel, they are remarkable for their large size and their showy color, pink to purplish, sometimes white. The fruit is a 4-seeded capsule.

Cotyledons

The cotyledons have a characteristic open v-shape, with a limb divided into 2 diverging lobes at an angle of 60 to 70 °. This blade, with a rounded base and an obtuse apex, is up to 4 cm long. 2 longitudinal ribs a little prominent run through the upper face of each lobe. The petiole is slightly canaliculate on the upper face.

First leaves

The first leaves are alternate, simple, petiolate, oval or oblong, with a cordate base and round apex. All the seedling is smooth and hairless.

General habit

Creeping herbaceous plant, creeping spreading due to its long ramifications.

Underground system

The main root is a taproot. Adventitious roots form at the nodes in contact with the moist soil.

Stem

The stem is cylindrical, hollow, branched. It is vigorous, and measures up to 12 mm in diameter, and extends several meters on the ground. Green when young, it becomes reddish-brown or purplish as it gets older.

Leaf

The leaves are alternate and simple, they are 3 to 10 cm apart along the stems. The petiole which reaches 15 cm long, is canaliculate on its upper face. The blade is heart-shaped or kidney-shaped to suborbicular, almost as wide or wider than long, and is broadly cordate at the base, obtuse apex, rounded sometimes apiculated or emarginate. It measures up to 15 cm in its largest dimension. Its surface is smooth and glabrous, traversed near the base by some radial nervs, prominent on the upper surface.

Inflorescence

The inflorescence is a multiflorous biparous cyme, at the axil of a leaf. Flowering is staggered, with only one flower, or only a few, blooming at the same time.

Flower

The flowers, large, are borne by a peduncle 0.2 to 3 cm long. The calyx has 5 greenish, smooth, hairless sepals, arranged in 2 rows, 2 outer, the shortest, elliptic and 3 internal, oblong, 18 mm or less in length. All have an apex truncated or weakly emarginated. The funnel-shaped corolla, with a widely flared tube at the end, is 5 to 9 cm long and 3 to 5 cm in diameter. It is pink or purplish, sometimes white, with a more intense band of the same color, in the middle of each petal. The stamens 0.5 to 2 cm long, have a violet mesh at the base and a white anther. The ovary with 2 boxes is surmounted by a filiform style and a globular stigma.

Fruit

The fruit is a subglobose capsule 1.5 mm in diameter, with a tough, smooth integument, light brown in color, greyish when ripe. The calix is persistent. The sepals remain applied on the fruit. This capsule with 2 cells contains 4 seeds.

Seed

The seed forms a quarter of a sphere, 6 to 8 mm long, brownish, with a finely pubescent surface.

https://www.gbif.org/species/2928595