ID please!

I am growing plants in planters, where I try to produce miniature eco-systems. So I have been keeping a keen eye on a little Moroccan spider that massproduces and keeps fruit fly and sc. fly under control which tend to destroy my Amaryllis chips. So in this planter there is some geraniums (not liked by spider mite, I am trying to deter the mite, but it's too smart, it will soon find ipomoea its favourite food), two custard apples...and some other plants I only know the German name of. In the left corner and in the middle of the picture are ipomoeas...I completely forgot what I sowed there some 4 weeks ago...

Really hard to ID such small plants without seeing the blooms, but they look like baby nils.

I agree...post some updates as the plant develops...

These look like some of the blue asagaos with the small platycodon flower (some are blue, light blue with the red center, and some have had light blue with the white center and some are split petalled).. please post photos when you can. we can compare.

this is one of several flowers.. good luck. Alot of mine have tan seeds. Make a teepee so that you can wrap them around, they are thin vines too, kinda nice to have some compact mgs around.
A.

I now remember having bought these from a German lady at ebay. The description says: Beautiful dark blue ipomoea, vine will climb up to 2 to 3 metres.

I am surprised that it already shows flower buds after only 5 weeks. Don't get confused with what looks like it's vining already, it is still only an inch high. The part you see in the back of the photo is part of a sweet pea, which I haven't been able to grow due to spider mite and the extreme heat. I thought I might try the sweat peas now to see if they will flower in spring...They won't survive spider mite, it prefers them to MGs...

It could be a dark blue platycodon, was the seed black? The light tan seeds produced this light blue also.


I'll will be interesting to find out the name. I really don't know what to call them, but that is what this type of leaf is producing.

This message was edited Sep 4, 2007 8:10 AM

Hi Gourd,

I don't know if we are talking about the same plant. If I am not mistaken it was one of the very first JMG seeds I bought at ebay. The packet says Murasakihigezaki...The flower has a picotee edge and hasn't fully opened.

If it is a morning glory nil than this is definitely the first one I have seen with such tiny hairless leaves. The seeds are black and semilunar.



Martin

oh, you got a platycodon bell shape flower(kikyosaki), I don't think it is hige thou, hige means feathered and something else, murasaki I think means the color purple.

It is one of these guys.. the leaves on alot of these resemble each other.. I love them. Sometimes they sell them as picotee, but I think the name is Kikyosaki.. none the less they are gorgeous.

This one is a platycodon from LAMark i got in a trade. Leaves are the same.

Well, if Murasaki means purple that could be true, too. It turned purple in the afternoon.
It is not feathered as you said, Gourd, but people give so many "wrong" names, these days...Would you be interested in a seed swap?


Martin

Sure, we could swap, give me some time for the seeds to dry.. I sent you a d-mail back from the last couple of weeks. D-mail me when you get a chance.
A.

I have taken two more photos of another plant from the same seed packet. This one is taken with a flash light, the colour is much too light.

This one is taken without the flash, but the blue is still not the blue as it really is, it is much, much darker...

Pretty little bloom, Martin. These types are always very fast to bloom for me. They often bloom on a ridiculously small plant, even before there are a lot of leaves.

What is the exact name of this then? Is it an ipo nil or a purpurea? The sepals are upright and it looks that they will remain upright, so is it a nil then?

Here is what it looked like a bit later in the afternoon. Todays the temperature was quite stable. In my mind I have always connected colour changes in ipos with changes in temperatures, but it seems they do change colour anyway.

This is one of the ipos I like best so far, I have had a blue silk, which I also quite like, but this one very much resembles a gentian you would find in the alps, I am sure there are people who mistake it for a gentian or "Enzian" as we say in German.

Well, one thing I know... they are not I. purpurea or Tri-color, so they must be I. nils. Unless they have their own species, then we need to get an expert, cuz I don't know too much regarding that area.

I really believe that they are called Kikyosaki plants, now they come in different colors and names..

just like I. nil (Blue Silk), I. nil Hanahubuki, I. nil Chocolate

I wonder if you have to put I. nil in front of kykyosaki (kykyosaki represents the shape of the flower, not white edge), it would be
I. nil kikyosaki picotee with the white edge I would think, some do not have a white edge though, so you would not add the picotee at the end.

Then to add to the confusion there are some called Murasaki Jishi, which is supposed to be a double blue, now I don't know if Jishi means double and Murasaki means blue or what?

I sure hope someone comes and straightens us all out..lol.

Please do not memorize anything I wrote, because I may have it all wrong.

A.

I bought them as murasaki jishi .... and the picture it showed was a double star light blue, but they really turn out bell-and-star-shaped at the same time...It wasn't the German lady I bought them from as I stated further up in the thread...I got some other convulv. from her. These were from the sunshine seeds company.
Another distinct feature is that they are definitely dwarf ipos, but even an ipo quimlocit starts out as a tiny little critter but does grow steadily to quite and impressive height, so we'll have to wait and drink tea in the meanwhile...

Martin - First the accepted scientic name should be ascertained...

I posted a host of links of sepals for everyone to reference here
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=3956843
there's only 'so much' I can do and then it is up to the interested to please become familiar with the few species that are most often grown as ornamentals...

There is an old saying:

"If you give a man a fish you fed him for the day but if you teach a man to fish you fed him for his life"

I like to continue to encourage those interested enough to learn how to fish...and some are actually fishing quite nicely...

I perceive that you are interested to be an active learner and so I am re-directing you back to some basic material that needs to be absorbed in order to walk before you can run...

I can see that the plant you are asking about in this thread is an Ipomoea nil >that is based on my memory experience of these >but if you want definitive scientific ID's then you must be willing and able to post closeup photos of the sepals...

This is a very blurry photo in this post here
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=3948231
but still good enough for me to see the structure...so don't worry about any potos not being 'perfect'...



The somewhat poetic/artistic descriptions that the Japanese have given to the cultivars(!) are usually accurate in describing how a cultivar of a particular species looks, but not always...
these descriptions very often have little or nothing to do with the scientific botanical classification...and it seems this is an area of confusion for people...
because with the exception of the names applied by scientific researchers at Universities like Kyushu where the genetics of the Morning Glories are studied in a scientific way the artistic names applied by the japanese are not necessarilly scientific or scientifically accurate...
they are poetic-artistic descriptions that are meant to be 'artistic' and are quasi-scientific at best...and should not in a very 'concrete'way or to be taken literally...

The ability to ascertain the species(!) that 'you' have is crucial to being able to 'play' with crossings because different species will not cross...


The Best in your continued interest...

TTY,...

Ron

Ron, people have a terrible tendency of reading/interpreting things into email addresses or atavars. The reason I have chosen gofast, has not necessarily to do with the fact that I want to go fast nor jump the gun as we say in English. I just found it handy because I need to use various keyboards and passwords every day (for earning by bread an butter), so I use "gofast" often, which is easy to type in all the languages I know. My email address smarttranslator has also provoked all kinds of funny, but also annoying misunderstandings in the past...

In a nutshell, I want to catch my own fish, ok?

Back on the subject now: The photo I am posting here is not for beauty, but for scientific clarification. The big question that I have in the back of mind NOW is: Would these sepals have curled later on if I hadn't nipped the bud.

So perhaps, it wasn't a good idea to have rushed in the interest of science. BUT, I must admit I also cut it off because producing seeds would have taken a lot of energy from this small plant and I do want to see some more flowers...

What I have also noted, if this is a nil than it is either very exceptional because the leaves of a nil are normally hairy and softer in structure. There is some hair on the calix, but it is about 1/5th in length compared to Scarlett O'Hara.

Would it help to post a close-up of the leaves, Ron?

The original colour is dark blue turning into purple later on. So what's important: The colour we start out with or we end up with for a scientifically correct nomenclature?

So, can we call it: Ipomoea nil, kikyo, dark blue, single-flowered with picotee edge?

Thanks, Ron, for being so patient with me, I hope to learn much more from you. The sepal identification is a great help, but it's the borderline cases that makes it slightly difficult.

This one is atypical for the nils I have seen so far (I have only seen the blue silk and Scarlett O'Hara so far in my humble garden) because it's leaf structure is so much harsher, but this could have to do with the fact that it is a "dwarf"?

Martin - I'm just checking in here late and will answer you more completely after I've slept...but the plant is definitely a nil and yes >the fact that it is a certain type of dwarf contributes to the stiffer quality that you are noticing...

TTY,...

Ron

Good man, Ron, thanks!!!!

I'm going to tell you something I did quite by accident. While moving some pots around the tip of one of these plants was broken, it therefore, put out several side branches and litterallly filled the trellis and had hundreds of blooms, which means lots of seeds... if you keep pinching off the flowers, you will not get any seeds for next year (or for trading)..

I really believe in bloombooster, for two years in a row, I sowed very expensive JMG seeds and got maybe 5 flowers total for the season, NO seeds at all. Now, that I'm using this, there are flowers everywhere (no pinching needed) and I'm getting seeds, I've had to handpollinate several, but, there is enough pollen on some for the others..

It's really your choice, but you can have the best of both worlds. Even some of the vines on their last leg here, once I put some more bloombooster, they perk up and start new leaves and bloom a couple more times (not many flowers, just a couple) but, if you have a rare one, you WANT those flowers to produce a couple of seeds if that is all you have.

These have been a couple of my failures/successes in the past couple of years.. I didn't grow any in 2006 because of a move, but the two years before were a disaster of sorts..

I hope this helps some...

A.

I still have six seeds, Gourd. I happened to read yesterday on a German website that this flower is supposed to be cold-resistant, so should this be the case perhaps I can get them through the Maroccan winter (it hardly ever gets below 8 degrees Celsisus). I will see how they cope. Can you tell me a bit about seed setting behaviour of ipos, Gourd. I have a so-called Scarlett O'Harra (it is not the real McCoy) that brought about 15 flowers when it was very hot, they have now all turned into seed pods, however flowering seems to be over. Should I leave the seed pods on the plant or harvest them, they are turning yellowish? I would still like to see some flower though.

Martin

Martin -

Here's few more responses to offer...

Would these sepals have curled later on if I hadn't nipped the bud.
No,because it is an Ipomoea nil,not an Ipomoea hederacea...

"So, can we call it: Ipomoea nil, kikyo, dark blue, single-flowered with picotee edge?"

I'd choose to refer to it as follows
Ipomoea nil - single kikyo dark blue picotee

"So what's important: The colour we start out with or we end up with for a scientifically correct nomenclature?"

Usually it is the color that stabilizes soon after opening that is used to describe the flowers color characterisics...but this is not usually the basis of the scientific or botanical name...it is most usually the basis of the cultivar name but in some cases the changing colors are also addressed in the description e.g., "Changing Asagao"...

"The sepal identification is a great help, but it's the borderline cases that makes it slightly difficult.
That's okay...I didn't learn this in a day or a week...differentiating some hederacea from nils can be especially challenging even for some experts...

"Should I leave the seed pods on the plant or harvest them, they are turning yellowish?"
Leave them on until they fall off by themselves as the plants resorb valueable constituents...


Hope that helps...

TTY,...

Ron

Thanks a lot, Ron, great explanations :). I just thought it would also be good to indicate detaisl about growth in a description, i.e. normal MG, giant or dwarf MG...because a dwarf MG will not require long poles for support and that's an important feature I would want to know before I buy seeds...Is the dwarf gene genetically recessive like the kikyo gene?

Martin - Yes,of course taking note of all features is valuewable and noteworthy...

Here is a list of some genes that can result in small sized plants...they are all recessive...

dw-1 dwarf-1, Kidachi (or Kodachi)-1 II
Hypocotyl short, with cotyledons of hard texture. Stem thick; about 2.5 feet high, with short internodes. Star-shaped corolla.
dw-2 dwarf-2, Kidachi (or Kodachi)-2 IX
Similar to Kidachi (or Kodachi)-1.
dw-3 dwarf-3, Kidachi (or Kodachi)-3 V
Similar to Kidachi (or Kodachi)-1.
dwy dwarfy, Nisekidachi (or Nisekodachi)
Stem short; internodes short, with overlapping leaves.

mim miniature mutable, Ihensei-tubame
Unstable miniature.


pg pigmy, Waishou
Cotyledon small; small leaves crowded on very short stem, sterile.

sb Shrubish, Hansousei-turu V
Seedling somewhat small. Lobes of leaf sharp-pointed. Leaf of hard texture. Branches occur on lower part of main stem.

sd stunted, Ijike
Growth slow and stunted. Stem stunted; leaf crumple; flower irregularly split. Fertility very low.


sh shrubby, Sousei-si
Dwarf, less than 1.5 feet high. Branches crowd, forming bush growth.


TTY,...

Ron

I am beginning to see why Ipomoea is one of the most studied plants with such a wealth of genetic information...

It's a shame you lost so much useful information on your computer. I find it useful to store information in email folders outside my computer...but I also should do more regular backups of my translations...Just reminds me that I am spending too much time in the MG forum I need to get back to checking my translation again...


Martin

I found something interesting from the German Meyers Encyclopedia on the phenomenon of single and double blooms of plants in general (i.e. not necessarily related to ipos)...Even though it is pretty vague it seems to establish a relationship between environmental conditions and the formation of single/double blooms....


..."Compared to the normal formation of single blooms, the phenomenon of double blooms is rather exceptional and may be passed on to subsequent generations by sexual propagation, but often the double bloom trait can only be preserved by vegetative propagation. As a rule, double blooms are induced by planting flowers in unusual improved conditions, however it can also happen that double blooms are produced if the plant is transferred from an improved environment to poorer environmental conditions"...

It would be interesting to find out if ipo gardeners can confirm this theory...


Martin

Hey Martin - Hmmm....sounds a bit 'vague'...what constitutes the 'improved' condition(?)...if the 'unknown improved' condition could be achieved then 'dis-improving' it could 'confirm' the theory...

I'm all for 'improving' living conditions for any impoverished MG's...although it seems that so far I've only gotten cleistogamic flowers from stesssing them...no spontaneous doubles...

Maybe others will have better luck...

TTY,...

Ron