morning glory - Culinary use, Recreational use, Gallery

An annual (Ipomoea tricolor) growing to 3 m/10 ft, native to tropical America; climbing by means of twining stems; leaves oval to heart-shaped; flowers up to 12·5 cm/5 in diameter, funnel-shaped, blue with yellow throat, sometimes purple or red. It is a relative of the sweet potato and bindweeds, and a popular ornamental. (Family: Convolvulaceae.)

Morning glory is a common name for a number of species of flowering plants in the family the Convolvulaceae, belonging to the following genera:

As the name implies, morning glory flowers, which are funnel-shaped, open at morning time, allowing them to be pollinated by hummingbirds, butterflies, bees and other daytime insects and birds, as well as Hawkmoth at dusk for longer blooming variants.

Morning glory is also called asagao (in Japanese, a compound of 朝 asa "morning" and 顔 kao "face").

Because of their fast growth, twining habit, attractive flowers, and tolerance for poor, dry soils, some morning glories are excellent vines for creating summer shade on building walls when trellised, thus keeping the building cooler and reducing air condtioning costs.

Culinary use

Ipomoea aquatica, known as water teeth, water morning-glory, water convolvulus or swamp cabbage, is popularly used as a green vegetable especially in East and Southeast Asian cuisines.

Recreational use

The seeds of many species of morning glory contain d-lysergic acid amide, ergoline alkaloids better known as LSA. To discourage morning glory's use as hallucinogenic drugs, some commercial seed producers have started treating seeds with a chemical that will not wash off.

Gallery