Ipomoea and Tropaeolum
Dennis Kramb (Thu, 25 Aug 2005 09:45:34 PDT)

At 11:13 AM 8/25/2005, you wrote:

White flowers are extremely difficult for me to photograph, but this one
turned out wonderful. I love the star shaped texture in the petals. I
found it growing up a dead tree on an open hillside (under some electric
power lines). It was enjoying itself, for sure! There were dozens of
blooms and you could see it for what seemed like miles away.

The I.p. growing in my neighbors yard always suffer that affliction of
insect damage to the seeds. I collected some seeds from a nearby high
school, but strangely they did not have the fuzzy robes on them. (Could
some smart person please tell me the scientific name for that "fuzzy robe",
LOL.) The flowers were almost certainly I.p. but the seeds look like
regular morning glory seeds. Anyway, I'm growing them on to see what
blooms they produce.

My neighbors patch of I.p. seems to grow larger each year. I suppose it's
propagating vegetatively rather than re-seeding. But I'm not really
familiar enough with this species to know for sure. I keep checking for
seed pods but none have formed yet this season. (My spell checker insists
that reseeding should be receding.) LOL.

I would love to see someone selectively propagate this species to get a
pure purple flower.

Ooohh... I just had an idea. How cool would it be to grow Ipomoea
pandurata at the base of a Hibiscus moscheutos! :-)

Dennis in Cincinnati (where the wildflower seed collecting has begun)