Botany of Sweet Potato 



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ingly variable in shape, 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, like the flower of a morning-glory ; 

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

 i/o 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 /. 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 batata is 

 an aboriginal American name for the sweet potato, from which 

 the word " potato " is derived.) 



