Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet
railway creeper
Slender, fibrous-rooted, glabrous, perennial, climbing or scrambling herb. Stems ribbed, often becoming tuberculate. Lvs on slender petioles to 5 cm long, spreading. Lamina 2.5-7 cm long, palmately 5-7-lobed almost to base; lobes lanceolate, obtuse to subacute or mucronate, entire or outer again lobed; terminal lobe larger. Infl. 1-2-(4)-flowered; peduncles to 5 cm long, ± erect. Pedicels to c. 3 cm long. Sepals 6-10 mm long, ovate, obtuse or subacute. Corolla 4.5-6 × 5-8 cm, funnelform, mauve with darker throat, very rarely white. Stamens included. Capsule 12 mm diam., globose-ovoid. Seeds 2-4, hairy until mature, often becoming glabrous after dehiscence.
N.: N. Auckland, Auckland; K.: Raoul and Macauley Is.
Also indigenous to Old World Tropics, including the tropical and subtropical W. Pacific.
Coastal areas.
FL Oct-May.
I. cairica is sometimes cultivated in warmer areas of the North Id and is a casual escape in Auckland City but is not indigenous there. This sp. has been usually known in N.Z. as I. palmata.
An annual sp. also in sect. Leiocalyx is I. tricolor Cav. This was commonly cultivated in N.Z. until stocks were withdrawn because of fears over its hallucinogenic properties. It is distinguished from I. cairica by its unlobed lvs and from I. indica and I. purpurea by its glabrous stems.
