Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet

Herbs perennial, twining, with a tuberous root; axial parts ?glabrous. Stems to 5 m, thinly angular, ± tuberculate or smooth. Petiole 2-8 cm, base with leafy pseudostipules; leaf blade palmately 5-parted to base; lobes entire or minutely undulate, apex acute or obtuse, mucronulate, basal pair usually again lobed or parted; middle lobe larger, ovate, ovate-lanceolate, or elliptic, (2.5-)4-5 X (0.5-)2-2.5 cm. Inflorescences 1- or several flowered; peduncle 2-8 cm; bracts and bracteoles early deciduous, squamiform, small. Pedicel 0.5-2 cm, sometimes verruculose. Sepals unequal; outer 2 sepals 4-6.5 mm; inner ones 5-9 mm, glabrous, abaxially ± verruculose, margin paler, scarious. Corolla pink, purple, or reddish purple, with a darker center, rarely white, funnelform, (2.5-)5-7 cm. Stamens included, unequal. Ovary glabrous. Stigma 2-lobed. Capsule ± globose, ca. 1 cm. Seeds black, ca. 5 mm, densely tomentose, margin with longer hairs. 2n = 30*.

"Vines; the stems slender, smooth or tuberculate; annual, glabrous. Leaves round in outline, biternately or digitately 5-9-lobed, upto 12 cm long, the lobes linear-lanceolate to elliptic, acute, 3-8 cm long, 1-4 cm wide, with pseudostipules. Inflorescences 1-3-flowered, on peduncles 2.5-7 cm long. Flowers with pedicels upto 1 cm long, woody, clavate; sepals orbicular to elliptic ovate, obtuse, smooth or verruculose, somewhat unequal, the outer 3 shorter and broader, 6-12 mm long, gibbous and 1-2 tuberculate at the base; corolla yellow or white with a purple centre, funnelform to almost salverform, with a narrowed tube, 5-10 cm long. Fruits capsular, globose, 6-11 mm long; seeds subglobose-trigonous, brown, 5 mm long, with appressed pubescence and occasionally with long trichomes on the angles."

Habit: Climber

Habit: Climber