Blue morning glory
Ipomoea indica
Family · Convolvulaceae · Poisonous
Read this before the sheet
This plant, or one that resembles it, is dangerous. Identifying is not authorising: no app has the authority to tell you that you may eat or touch a plant.
Emergency
The climber with large violet-blue funnel flowers covering hedges and walls all along the coast. It opens at dawn and closes by midday, and is among the prettiest and most destructive invaders.
Town and roadside · Roadsides and waste ground · Streams and ditches · Scrubland
Also known asoceanblue morning glory
How to tell it
Twining hairy stems that wrap round everything. Heart-shaped leaves, entire or three-lobed, covered in short hair. Funnel flowers six to eight centimetres, violet-blue to purplish, with a paler tube, in groups of three to five. They close before the heat of the day.
What it is confused with
Field bindweed
Convolvulus arvensis
Field bindweed has small flowers, two centimetres, white or pale pink, and arrowhead leaves; this has violet-blue flowers six to eight centimetres and broad heart leaves. Both climb and both twine.
What it is for
None
The genus's seeds contain ergot alkaloids related to LSD and are toxic: they cause nausea, hallucinations and vasoconstriction. Ecologically it smothers hedges and small trees entirely.
The law says
A listed invasive alien species in Portugal. Do not plant or propagate it.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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