Addisonia 15 



(Plate 128) 



IPOMOEA TENUISSIMA 

 Cuban Morning-glory 



Native of southern Florida, Cuba, and Hispaniola 

 Family Convoi^vulaceae Morning-glory Family 



Ipomoea tenuissima Choisy, in DC. Prodr. 9: 376. 1845. 



A diffuse tender herbaceous vine, with numerous stems arising 

 from thick perennial roots. The stems and branches are slender, 

 villous-hirsute and somewhat downy, or nearly glabrous in age, 

 usually twining on herbs and low shrubs. The leaves are pubescent 

 like the stem and branches, with the hairs usually prominently 

 pustulate at the base. The blades are very variable in shape, rang- 

 ing from reniform or ovate to lanceolate or linear, usually sagittate 

 or hastate, mostly one to two inches long, deep green on both sides, 

 but slightly paler beneath, with the broad or narrow basal lobes 

 spreading or recurved. The petioles are slender, as long as the leaf- 

 blades or shorter. The flowers are borne singly, or two or three 

 together in peduncled cymes. The peduncle is much longer than 

 the pedicels, which are subtended by subulate bracts. The green 

 or purple- tinged calyx is five-lobed ; the three outer lobes are smaller 

 and narrower than the two inner ones, often pubescent on the back, 

 always ciliate with long hairs which are conspicuously pustulate at 

 the base, acuminate; the inner lobes are larger than the outer, gla- 

 brous, except sometimes for ciUa near the apex, short caudate- 

 acuminate. The corolla is funnelform, very tender, magenta, paler 

 on the limb than in the throat, one and a half to two inches long, 

 glabrous without, sparingly pubescent within on the lower part of 

 the tube; the limb is often somewhat pentagonal, spreading or with 

 slightly recurved edges, The five stamens are included in the 

 corolla. The filaments are filiform, the lower part of each, usually 

 about one half the filament, adnate to the corolla-tube, the upper 

 portion of the adnate part and the lower portion of the free part 

 softly pubescent with glandular hairs. The anthers are ellipsoid or 

 ovoid-ellipsoid, about one twelfth of an inch long, obtuse. The ovary 

 is ovoid, sessile on an annular disk, with a ring or crown of erect 

 bristle-like hairs above the middle. The style is filiform above a 

 subulate base, glabrous; the two-lobed stigma is papillose. The 

 capsule is subglobose or depressed, a quarter of an inch in diameter 

 or less, short-beaked, pubescent near the top without, glabrous 

 within, seated in the calyx. The seeds are black, glabrous. 



Many kinds of morning-glories inhabit Florida, but among all 



of them the species here illustrated has the most fragile and fuga- 



ceous corolla. The flowers open, on fair days, for an hour or two in 



the forenoon; when the corollas have expanded, a gust of wind or a 



