Blue morning glory

Description

Ipomoea indica is a species of flowering plant in the family Convolvulaceae, known by several common names, including blue morning glory, oceanblue morning glory, koali awa, and blue dawn flower. It bears heart-shaped or 3-lobed leaves and purple or blue funnel-shaped flowers 6–8 cm (2–3 in) in diameter, from spring to autumn. The flowers produced by the plant are hermaphroditic. This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. The plant is grown as an ornamental for its attractive flowers, but it is invasive in many regions of the world and is specifically listed on New Zealand's Biosecurity Act 1993. Ipomoea indica is a vigorous, long-lived, tender perennial vine native to tropical, subtropical and warm temperate habitats throughout the world. They can most commonly be found in disturbed forests, forest edges, secondary woodland, suburban gullies, and along roadsides and waterways. The plant climbs well over other plants, walls and slopes as growing on the bottom. Its climbing habit allows it to compete with trees and shrubs successfully. It is a twisting, occasionally lying, herbaceous plant which is more or less densely hairy on the axial parts with backward-looking trichomes. The stems can grow 3 to 6 cm long and sometimes have roots at the nodes. The leaves are petiolate with 2 to 18 cm long petioles. The leaf blade is egg-shaped or round, 5 to 15 cm long and 3.5 to 14 cm wide. The underside is densely hairy with short, soft trichomes, the top is more or less sparsely hairy. The base is heart-shaped, the leaf margin is entire or three-lobed, the tip is pointed or sharply pointed. The crown is funnel-shaped, 5 to 8 cm long, glabrous, bright blue or bluish purple, with age they become reddish purple or red. The centre of the crown is a little paler. Its exact native distribution is unclear due to it being widely cultivated throughout the tropics of Eurasia, Africa and America, but it is currently thought by most authorities to be native to the Neotropics, from Florida in the United States south to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean and south to South America. It is also considered native to several Pacific islands, including Palau, the Hawaiian Archipelago (where its native Hawaiian name is Koali ‘awa), French Polynesia, and Micronesia.