Ipomoea hederifolia L.

An annual twiner. Stems herbaceous, terete or slightly angular, often contorted, 2-5 m high, glabrous or sparsely pilose. Leaves mostly glabrous, ovate or broadly ovate to orbicular in outline, 3-15 by 3-10 cm, cordate at the base, acuminate and mucronulate at the apex, the margin entire, angular, coarsely dentate or obscurely to deeply 3-lobed, the middle lobe narrowed towards the base; petiole shorter or longer than the blade, 3-12 cm, glabrous or sparsely pilose. Inflorescences lateral or terminal, few-to several-flowered, 10-35 cm long; peduncle often longer than the petiole, 3-20 cm, terete or angular, glabrous or pubescent, cymosely branched at the top; first ramification mostly dichasial, subsequent ones monochasial; flowers and fruits on erect pedicels. Pedicels angular, 5-7 mm or longer, in fruit up to 8-12 mm, that of the central flower up to 15 mm. Bracts minute, 1½-2 mm, triangular, mucronulate. Sepals oblong-rectangular with broadly obtuse or truncate apex and with a large straight or slightly curved awn inserted immediately below the top; outer sepals 2-2½, inner ones ca 3 mm long (awn excluded); awn 3-4 mm; sepals in fruit patent, afterwards reflexed. Corolla glabrous, salver-shaped, scarlet, the tube 3-4 cm long, narrowed towards the base, slightly curved; the limb patent, up to 2-2½ cm diam. Stamens and style exserted; filaments slightly unequal, glabrous. Ovary glabrous. Capsules on erect pedicels, globular, 5-7 mm high, glabrous, 4-celled, 4-valved; the dissepiments persistent, pellucid, with a thickened circular margin. Seeds 4, ca 4 mm long, black, densely pubescent.

Cultivated in gardens for ornamental purposes; run wild in waste places, fields, grasslands, thickets and thin forests, up to 1200 m.

The leave are cooked and eaten as a vegetable.