Morning Glories: I. indicaSeeds vs. Sterile, 0 by QueenB

QueenB wrote:
Okay, I'm going to open another can of worms here. Get your openers ready!

Most of us are familiar with the sterile, invasive form of I. indica:

flower clusters
opens blue, changes to purple before closing
hairy
stems dark, easily root
leaves heart-shaped or trilobed
can cover tall buildings in a single day (just kidding--or maybe not...)

When I went to Florida two springs ago, I gathered seeds for a beautiful blue morning glory that I saw growing all over the place there, mostly in people's yards, but also along the sides of the road in bushes that were literally only yards away from the surf. I came home and did a little homework, and found that this too is called I. indica.

I have a problem with this, because the two vines aren't all that similar beyond leaf shape. In fact, after looking at photos of Emma's vine that she got from Alcapulco, I'm thinking it's closer to that one, only there are still more differences, and the seeds are not the same.

As you can see by the following photos, the Florida strain of I. indica doesn't look exactly like the sterile strain that most of us have or have seen, having shiny leaves and stems, and the calyx surrounding the seedpod doesn't correspond to what we see falling off the sterile vines. Even the flowers are shaped different, and not quite the same hue. I missed getting photos of the flowers on this vine because there were very few of them, and they always seemed to sneak up on me.

This message was edited Jan 24, 2007 8:27 PM

I just realized that this first photo is one of the leaves of the sterile strain that was growing on my mailbox! *red face* The leaves do have a bit of a shine to them, but nothing like the ones in the following photos. It was also very hairy. The leaves don't have the reddish markings that the Florida strain does.

This message was edited Jan 25, 2007 8:29 AM