Ipomoea tricolor along a roadside in Mexico
This Mexican morning glory was photographed along a busy roadside in México, just outside of the city of San Miguel de Allende. My travel companion for the October morning, David Tarrant (also a frequent BPotD contributor), made sure to stop here to let me get a few photographs before we continued on to see the flowers in the countryside.
Mexican morning glory is native to the tropical New World, but has naturalized in suitable habitats elsewhere. In México, the species is known as quiebraplatos, translating to “cracked plates”. Ipomoea tricolor is often grown as as annual plant in cold-temperate climates. It does not tolerate frost; where freezing temperatures are rare, it will persist as a perennial. Under ideal conditions, it may scramble to as high as 4m (13 ft.).
Most of the online information references its hallucinogenic properties, e.g., the Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility’s Canadian Poisonous Plants Information System entry on Ipomoea tricolor:
Hallucinations are the predominant effect after ingesting morning glory seeds. Ingesting 200-300 seeds produces an effect equivalent to 300 micro g of LSD. Vivid visual and tactile hallucinations, as well as increased awareness of colors have been described. Symptoms include facial flushing, nausea, mydriasis, diarrhea, and hypotension (Spoerke and Smolinske 1990). Ipomoea tricolor has a long history of use as a human hallucinogen in southern Mexico, where the seeds were used in the preparation of a drink (Fuller and McClintock 1986). A single undocumented case of poisoning of a pet cat (after ingestion of seeds) has come to our attention. The cat showed erratic behavior and “looked like a lunatic”. There was no apparent permanent damage afterwards. Several cultivars of Ipomoea tricolor are available in Canadian garden catalogs for home gardeners and, with few exceptions, no mention is made of any potential toxic affects [sic] from ingesting the seeds of these plants. Sample cultivars are ”Heavenly Blue”, ”Pearly Gates”, and ”Scarlet O”Hara”. The total alkaloid content is shown to vary, depending on the cultivar grown. It is advisable to remove and destroy the fruiting parts as they develop to avoid ingestion by children or pets.
I feel obliged to add that commercial seeds for ornamental plantings are (apparently) often treated with fungicides or compounds like methylmercury (a cumulative neurotoxin).
Daniel. I had to comment on this entry, as of course blue flowers are my all time favourites.
When growing these as summer annuals up in Canada I never quite understood why they took all summer to grow and not really bloom prolifically until September.
But of course now living in Mexico I totally understand, as here in their natural habitat they are at the peak of their bloom September/ October .
Thanks for posting them.
Thank you for a beautiful reminder from my childhood. Not the hallucination bit.
Any particular reason that “tricolor” is a part of the former name? Thank you!
I plant seeds of the Heavenly Blue cultivar in Toronto every year. These are beautiful blue and white, with a yellow throat, so they are three colours. They climb six-foot trellises and bloom from late June/July to October/ November. Toronto currently has temperatures in the 30’s with humidity. Thank you for showing how they grow int he wild in Mexico.
Another possibility on the tricolor part is the purplish-violet of the outside of the unfurling flowers, which you can see in the enlarged photo.
Why speculate when you can read the original description:
“…corollis tricoloribus…
… tubus utrimque albicans ; limbus cœruleus ; angulorum latera maculata , maculis rubentibus hinc inde ad sinus usque productis.”
“…three-coloured corollas…
… tube whitened (whitish) inside and out ; the edge (border/hem/fringe) sky-blue (azure/sea-blue/dark-blue) ; side-angles spotted (stained/variegated), spots blushed red here and there from the fold to the drawn-out parts.”
I am not quite sure of the translation of the last word but “the drawn-out parts” fits for “productis” and makes sense, meaning the five points of the corolla. Those points are far more obvious in his drawing of the plant which was presumably a more wild version than the garden variety in this photo.
Icones et Descriptiones Plantarum, Vol III by Antonio José Cavanilles Palop. http://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/ing/Libro.php?Libro=240
I am sure fans of its uses in brujeria will love that it was described as from “Ignoratur patria.” – “The Unknown Country”.
Is this a garden variety? It is growing roadside within the native range.
I just assumed it was an escape from the look of it. The Cavanilles drawing looks a lot more pointy. In fact, I was wondering if it might have been a different species as these have no red maculae.
How close to habitation was this plant? I have no idea how much breeding was involved in producing the garden cultivars and whether any were just selected from the wild.
These Tropicos images show flowers paler, more delicate, pentangular and pointy than your photo. Though they are Nicaraguan. Googling wild ipomoea tricolor was not helpful.
http://www.tropicos.org/Image/100363970
http://www.tropicos.org/Image/79230
The garden plant is ubiquitous throughut the world and, unfortunately, people often plant garden varieties of plants native to their area.
Close enough to habitation to be cause for doubt, though not close to any gardens.
It may not persist in cold weather climates as a perennial, but let me tell you does it re-seed like crazy!
Oh excellent, I planted Heavenly Blue this spring. hehehehe
The lysergamide-derived hallucinogenic toxins are produced by a symbiotic, endophytic fungus, not by the plant itself. It is possible to rid the plant of the fungus with systemic fungicides and have less toxic plants. I wouldn’t recommend them as food, though. The plant would also be likely to be more prone to being eaten or attacked by disease organisms without the protective chemicals.
The fungus has been named Periglandula ipomoeae, though there are other species and possible chemotypes within species.
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1003323
https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/45441034/Ergoline_alkaloids_in_convolvulaceous_ho20160507-26169-a9mjk4.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1527881498&Signature=1eyw6b0jB9q84tNBbW%2BJ6%2BcYonM%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DErgoline_alkaloids_in_convolvulaceous_ho.pdf
Blue morning glories are my favourite flowers. Thank you for such a beautiful photo.
In all their glory….and quite heavenly. Glad you stopped!