Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Wild potato vine



I don't normally venture onto this part of our property early in the morning, so I didn't realize we had any Wild Potato Vine (Ipomoea pandurata) until my husband mentioned it.

It was still, as they say, o'dark thirty.

I knew the common name of the flower, and that it was a type of native morning glory, but that was about it. I researched it and learned several things:

The root can reach the size of a man's leg and weigh over 30 pounds.

Pandurate means fiddle-shaped. (The leaves can also be heart-shaped, as in this picture.)

Sweet potatoes are a type of morning glory.

Moquitoes are really, really bad in this area early in the morning.

5 comments:

Anvilcloud said...

Yeah, it sure looks like our Morning Glorys, which I hear do grow like weeds in some environments. Heck, they pretty well do that here. They have a nasty little cousin that we call bindweed that nothing seems to discourage.

megabeth said...

Maybe it's just me but Blogger has not been allowing comments today. I thought that potato vines were invasive, at least according to my backyard. But nothing is as bad as the wisteria.

Art Lad said...

I like the Jasmine picture yesterday.

I have a place for my pictures that my Dad made for me! You're on it. Come see. I hope you like it.

--Thomas

[transcribed by his dad, aka MM]

Rurality said...

I think they like sandy or dry soil, which we don't have too much of around here... so I'm not too worried about them taking over. :)

Thanks Thomas! Congratulations on your new blog. Your drawings are very good!

Anonymous said...

Great photo!