Exogonium solanifolium (L.) Britton

• Title

  Exogonium solanifolium (L.) Britton

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton

• Scientific Name

  Exogonium solanifolium (L.) Britton

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Exogonium solanifolium Cambustera de costa Coastal Crimson Morning-glory Family Convolvulaceae Morning-glory Family Ipomoea solanifolia Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 161. 1753. Ipomoea filiformis Jacquin, Enumeratio Systematica Plantarum 13.1760. Exogonium filiforme Choisy, Convolvulaceae Rariores 129. 1838. Jacquemontia solanifolia Hallier, Botanische Jahrbücher 16: 542. 1893. Exogonium solanifolium Britton, Memoirs of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden 1: 88. 1918. A smooth, slender, perennial vine, usually growing in coastal thickets, but not necessarily within saline influence, highly attractive when in bloom by numerous crimson, or scarlet flowers. In Porto Rico it is frequent, or occasional near the coasts, and is recorded as once found well inland, near Utuardo; it grows also on Vieques Island, ranging eastward in the Virgin Islands, and in the Lesser Antilles from St. Bart's to St. Vincent and Barbados. The species has been variously classified by different authors. For an account of the genus, we refer to our description of Exogonium arenarium and another species, Exogonium repandum is also illustrated and described in this work. Exogonium solanifolium (leaves resembling those of some species of Solanum), becomes about 3 meters long, or shorter. The various leaves are ovate to lance-shaped, thin, neither toothed, nor lobed; they are blunt, or pointed, from 2 to 5 centimeters long, with stalks from 5 to 20 millimeters long, the base heart-shaped, or rounded. The flowers are few together, on slender, axillary stalks, the individual ones on slender stalks from 0.5 to 3 centimeters long; the ovate, pointed sepals are about 5 millimeters long, the crimson, or scarlet corolla from 2 to 2.5 centimeters long, its lobes much shorter than the tube. The nearly globular capsule is 4 or 5 millimeters in diameter, the seeds smooth. Our illustration was first published in "Addisonia", plate 549, May, 1932.