Alamo vine is a fuzzy descriptor that has been used for several different Ipomoea species inhabiting the New World.
Ipomoea coptica is frequently listed as a synonym of Merremia dissecta although Ipomoea coptica is also a legitimate Old World species from Africa...the confusion with Merremia dissecta originates from the dissected leaves.
I do not think referring to Ipomoea coptica as Alamo Vine is a good idea because all it will do is perpetuate confusion between Merremia dissecta (and other species) with the legitimate Ipomoea coptica which rarely (if ever) grows in the New World.
I love planting these together with morning glory. I plant them both in large rectangular planters, and let them climb up two trellises that I have mounted to the brick facing of the house. They look so beautiful! I find that though they're not terribly xeric, they can take a lot of heat, and are prolific growers. Both moonflowers and morning glory are annuals in my part of the world (North Texas), but they often reseed themselves, and sprout back up in the spring. They actually reseed a little too well. I'm often pulling stray shoots out from parts of the garden where they're not meant to be! A little extra weeding is well worth having these beauties in your garden.
Almost need a longer growing season for these here in Zone 5a. Mine always have to be brought inside in the Fall since they're just starting to bloom when frost comes the first week of September from seeds planted late May.
Ipomoea x leucantha is one of the extremely rare inter-specific hybrids within the genus Ipomoea and is the offspring of Ipomoea lacunosa and Ipomoea cordatotriloba.
The hybrid Ipomoea x leucantha is an annual and although it has been presented as being more invasive than either parent , there is no real evidence for claims of increased invasiveness except for certain researchers to continue to be funded by the chemical companies which pay them to produce the results that the funding sources expect...or funding gets cut of...
Ipomoea x leucantha inhabits the same exact areas that Ipomoea lacunosa or Ipomoea cordatotriloba inhabit...no more.
The greater the list of invasive plants grows , the more herbicides the chemical companies sell...think about it...
Question the results of studies funded directly or indirectly by chemical companies or Monsanto.
Clarke's early strain was the result of a Mr.Clarke noticing an early-blooming plant of Ipomoea tricolor (in the mid-1930s) and collecting and reproducing the seeds.
He kept some for himself (which he also marketed and sold in various ways) and he sold some seeds to several different larger marketing companies.
The color of the Early blooming Heavenly Blue was the same color as the later blooming Heavenly Blue of that same time period, which was a lighter color than the darker 'improved' version of Heavenly Blue which was pushed by the seed companies in approximately 1994.
There are at this point in time many different shades of color generally referred to as Heavenly Blue, as different strains from many different parts of the world have become more readily available and have additionally cross fertilized.
I am fully aware that this epithet is accepted and legitimate according to international standards.
I am focused on the Family of Convolvulaceae and have tried for most of my life to locate all species native to the continental USA and I personally have serious reservations concerning the legitimacy of Ipomoea 'shumardiana,' which is supposed to inhabit a very narrow range in Texas,Oklahoma and Kansas.
The professional literature regarding Ipomoea shumardiana is fuzzy at best and this extremely rare species has been proposed to be a natural hybrid between Ipomoea leptophylla and Ipomoea pandurata (which is scientifically highly unlikely)... Additionally, the descriptions to differentiate Ipomoea shurmardiana from either Ipomoea leptophylla or Ipomoea pandurata are very fuzzy and my best personal assessment ( based on herbarium specimen photos and descriptions) is that Ipomoea shumardiana is a slight variation of Ipomoea leptophylla and nothing more...
There has been a trend in botany and other science fields for researchers to get funding to gather additional data on very rare phenomenon and although the funding is acquired , the additional scientific proof 'somehow' never seems to surface...
I welcome Dan Austin (or any other Ipomoea expert) to prove my assessment to be other than accurate by producing clear closeup photos of relevant ID parts from living plants or the DNA profile ( easily acquired ) from herbarium specimens to prove that Ipomoea shumardiana exists and deserves to be recognized as a distinct entity at the taxonomic rank of species.
Star of Yelta was first marketed as an Ipomoea purpurea that would stay open for a longer part of the day than the I. purpureas that would close relatively earlier in the day.
The initial offerings were dark purple-blue with a darker purple-blue star pattern along the primary folds.
Star of Yelta is often confused with Grandpa Ott's which has the same background color on the limb but a fuchsia-colored star.
Ipomoea purpurea will cross fertilize with any other Ipomoea purpurea and there is no such thing as a completely stable open-pollinated type, and what is now offered by a plethora of sources as Star of Yelta and Grandpa Ott's is not the same as the initial starting stock...even from the original sources who believed in the (100%) stable open-pollinated myth hook, line and sinker (!)...
President Tyler was first marketed as a larger-sized (!) dark purple-blue Ipomoea purpurea, so unless you have a particularly large-sized purpurea that has an appreciably larger flower diameter than than the more common-sized I. purpureas, you do not have President Tyler.
I doubt there is any historical connection with the person of President Tyler (as that is just another marketing ploy), but I did see photos from growers who had bought the Ipomoea purpurea President Tyler when it was first offered by the big seed companies and it did have a larger-diameter flower.
The same larger-sized Ipomoea purpurea flowers will come out of the antique mixes if you grow them out for enough generations, and if you do get larger-sized blooms, please tag them to isolate and preserve these larger-sized purpureas.
This is a marketing name for a mixture of the flaked purpurea colors originally out of Japan as echoed on the JLHudson site here http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/S...
The JLHudson link to the PlantFiles was based on my commentary which has since been removed and replaced by the comment by grovespirit who has echoed the marketing material as provided to her by the marketers.
Ipomoea purpurea originated in the New World Tropics and there was no Ipomoea purpurea in Europe at the 'time of the Crusades'...
My original commentary in the PlantFiles explained the connection of the flaked strain with Dr. Yoneda's research, but it conflicted with the merchandisers who were advertising the 'carnivale of venice' as yet another new and improved exclusive ploy, and so my comment was removed.
There is nothing to support the false history as supplied by the merchandisers connecting the origin of the flaked strain with Venice and the 'carnivale of venice'; The 'carnivale of venice' flaked purpurea was made available 'mysteriously' only AFTER it was already in the hands of Morning Glory growers in the USA, Europe and other parts of the world, supplied by stock originating from Japan.
The cultivar known as 'Star of India" was first dubbed Royal Robe by the Morning Glory veterans of the Flower & Herb Exchange many years before Fragrant Path decided to call it Star of India and claim that it 'just appeared' in their garden from the typical Early Call stock.
I've grown Early Call for many years from different distributors and have consulted with the old-time vets from the Flower & Herb Exchange who have also been growing for at least several decades and the consensus is that not a single person ever got anything resembling the Royal Robe out of any Early Call mix from any filial generation.
The Royal Robe was one of the progeny of the dark murky purple that came out of the 1st batches of the "Sunrise Mix" offered by Burpee which was basically a mixture of Sakata's Akatsuki Mix with the addition of some surprise colors and patterns.
Summer Skies was a mutation of Heavenly Blue that was selected out by Darold Decker and it looked like I.tricolor "Blue Star" but without any darker coloration along the primary folds.
The seeds were beige and the plant had none of the purple tint to the stems, leaves and other parts typical of plants produced from the dark seeded forms of Ipomoea tricolor.
I personally grew Summer Skies from 1972 to about 1978 from seedstock that I originally acquired from Redwood City Seed Company.
There have been ongoing attempts to try and recreate Summer Skies by crossing different colored Ipomoea tricolor ( e.g., Pearly Gates with Heavenly Blue or Blue Star), but so far none of these attempts to recreate the original Summer Skies has produced any stable results that look like the original Summer Skies.
There have been several merchants on e-bay and elsewhere (such as Japan) who have claimed to offer real Summer Skies but careful tracing of the offerings has shown them to be descended from stock of a light-blue Heavenly Blue by a friend of mine in Texas and the 'summer skies' as offered today will always show some degree of darkening along the primary folds at some point in time (in some filial generation), which the real Summer Skies did not display because it apparently lacked the gene for spotting which is what causes the darkening along the primary folds.
The Blue Star that I grew in the 1960's and 1970's was all a very consistent and particular shade of light blue, but sometime around the late 1980's, the Blue Star available from different sources started to change color, first darkening and then eventually lightening (diverging from the original shade of Blue Star), and so, unless you know what color the original Blue Star was, you will not know what color the original Summer Skies was...and that is one of the ways that I can easily determine the phony 'summer skies,' because the merchants offering the 're-created versions' don't really know what the real color should be...
The REAL Summer Skies as descended from the original stock selected out by Darold Decker is definitely still MIA and most likely a Lost Cultivar.
The small red flowers of this annual vine are extremely attractive to hummingbirds. Makes a good substitute for Morning Glory vines as it doesn't grow nearly as quickly or as large. Looks especially nice grown on a small obelisk.
Rita, located on the north shore of Nassau County Long Island, NY zone 6/7 where it is humid in the summer.
Some seed packets for this plant contain the mix colors while others contain the red flowers only. While I prefer the red flowers the hummingbirds are very attracted to this vine and don't care about the flower color. A short, annual vine with lovely lacy folliage that is never overpowering.
I love this plant! Not only is it pretty, but it also smells wonderful. It is fun to sit and watch it open up. Had one that was almost open and when I went to sniff, it "exploded" in my face...way cool.
The Japanese Morning Glory is a beautiful ornamental plant that has escaped cultivation and become naturalized in subtropical and tropical regions. This annual vine produces beautiful flowers in various shades of blue, pink and rose with blended white stripes or edges. I received seeds for this plant from an online gardening friend and I grow it as a container plant. It blooms off and on all spring and summer.
I propose this entry should list only Kikyozaki Japanese Morning Glory. (leave out the Ipomoea nil Picotee Blue single) Flowers may be single or double. Patterns and shades of colors may vary.
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