Botany of Sweet Potato 227 



ingly variable in sliape, usually ovate to round-ovate in out- 

 line, cordate or truncate at base ; blades entire and the margin 

 merely wavy, or sometimes angled and notched, or deeply 

 3- to 5-lobed and the basal lobes again lobed : flowers few 

 or several terminating axillary peduncles of varying length 

 (much shorter or considerably longer than the petiole), light 

 violet with a darker center, lll?e the flower of a morning-glory ; 

 corolla about 2 in. long, obscurely obtusely 5-lobed ; calyx about 

 V2 in. long, deeply parted into unequal cuspidate lobes which 

 are sometimes ciliate ; stamens 5, the sagittate anthers and the 

 slightly 2-lobed capitate stigma usually not half the length of 

 the corolla ; ovary ciliate, sitting in a 5-angled yellow cup or 

 disc. — Unknown wild, but supposed from historical and geo- 

 graphical considerations to be native of the western hemi- 

 sphere ; by some botanists thought to be a probable derivative 

 of I. fastigiata. Sweet, of tropical America. It was early 

 distributed in the islands of the Pacific and apparently was 

 in China at least soon after the beginning of the Christian 

 era ; but the Polynesians were great navigators, and they 

 may have got it from America. It was probably anciently 

 cultivated on the American continent. {Batatas or latata is 

 an. aboriginal American name for the sweet potato, from which 

 the word " potato" is derived.) 



