Ipomoea dissecta (Jacq.) Pursh

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Convolvulaceae

• Scientific Name

  Ipomoea dissecta (Jacq.) Pursh

• Description

  Species Description - A long, perennial, white-flowered, twining vine, with deeply cut leaves, able to thrive both in tropical and warm temperate regions, its roots not being killed by moderate degrees of frost, distributed nearly throughout tropical America and ranging north to Bermuda, Georgia and Texas; it grows also in tropical and warm parts of the Old World. In Porto Rico it inhabits thickets at low elevations, growing also on Vieques Island. An account of the genus Ipomoea may be found with our description of Ipomoea polyanthes. Ipomoea dissecta (dissected, or cut leaves) is slender, long-hairy, or nearly smooth, branched, and becomes several meters in length. The long-stalked leaves are nearly orbicular in outline, and from 3 to 10 centimeters in diameter, but deeply palmately 5-parted, or 7-parted into oval or lance-shaped, toothed, or incised segments; their slender stalks are long-hairy. The axillary, stalked flowers are solitary, or few together; the nearly smooth, oblong, blunt sepals, from 1 to 2 centimeters long, enlarge in age, becoming about 3 centimeters long, or shorter; the corolla is white with a purple throat, the funnelform tube from 2 to 3 centimeters long, its spreading limb from 3 to 5 centimeters broad. The capsule is about 1.5 centimeters long, the seeds smooth, subglobose, 6 or 7 millimeters long.

• Discussion

  Noyo Noyau Vine Morning-glory Family Convolvulus dissectus Jacquin, Observationum Botanicarum 2: 4. 1767. Ipomoea dissecta Ortega, Plantarum Horti Matritensi Descriptionum Decades 84. 1798. Ipomoea dissecta Pursh, Flora Americae Septentrionelis 145. 1818.