Empalement five-cleft. Blossom funnel-shaped long, with a five-cleft or five-dentated border. Summit headed. Capsule three-celled, with many seeds in each cell.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER, &C.
Ipomæa, foliis cordatis acuminatis integerrimis, pedunculis subunifloris.
Ipomæa, with heart-shaped acuminated very entire leaves, and chiefly one-flowered peduncles.
Convolvulus grandiflorus, foliis cordatis ovatis obtusiusculis integerrimis, pedunculis subbifloris, calycibus coriaceis, caule petiolisque pubescentibus. Linn. Supp. Pl. 136.—Willd. Sp. Pl. 1. 859.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The empalement.
2.The tube of the flower cut open, to show the structure and insertion of the chives.
3.The pointal.
4. A capsule nearly ripe, cut horizontally and lifted up to show the seeds
This magnificent species of Ipomæa (the Convolvulus grandiflorus of authors) was obligingly communicated to us in bloom in the month of September, by A. B. Lambert, Esq. who thinks that its root will only prove an annual one. If this indeed should eventually be the case, it will cause it to recede in a material manner from the Convolvulus grandiflorus as described in the Supplementum Plantarum, and consequently in Willdenow’s Species Plantarum, which is there said to be an arborescent species: from C. grandiflorus it should also appear to differ, in its more pointed leaves and solitary peduncles; and likewise in having a stigma agreeing altogether in structure with the genus Ipomæa; which latter circumstance has occasioned us to separate it from Convolvulus, and transfer it to Ipomæa; because the conformation of the stigma in those extensive genera, often (but we fear not always) affords the most satisfactory characters for discrimination. All their species which we have examined, (and they have been very numerous,) possibly might be united into one genus, without committing much outrage against nature, or the natural affinities of her vegetable kingdom.[Pg 87]
