Convolvulaceae (kon-vol-vew-LAY-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Usually funnel-shaped flowers
- Petals in bud usually pleated and twisted
- Generally twining stems
Description (Jepson)
- Mostly herbaceous vines
- Also shrubs, herbaceous perennials, and annuals
- Tropical species include some trees
- Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
- 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
- Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
- Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
- Taproot system
- Most often with twining or trailing stems
- Stems of many species contain a milky sap (latex)
- Leaves
- Generally simple (not divided into leaflets), often arrowhead-shaped
- Alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem)
- Dodders (Cuscuta species), which are parasitic, have leaves reduced to scales
- Lack stipules (pair of leaf-like structures at the base of the leaf stalk)
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) usually a solitary flower at the leaf axil (branching point) or sometimes a cyme (branched stem with flowers opening from the top down)
- Usually showy, white, pale-yellow, or pink flowers
- Funnel-, trumpet-, or saucer-shaped, with “star-like creases” (Elpel 2013) and shallow lobes
- Bisexual and radially symmetric
- Flower parts in fives
- 5 fused petals, pleated and twisted in bud
- 5 stamens, attached to the petals
- Sepals often persistent in fruit
- Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit is a capsule (a dry, multi-chambered fruit that splits open at maturity) with a few large seeds
Notes
- Over 1,600 species worldwide, found in warm temperate regions and, most-commonly, in the tropics
- Includes bindweeds, morning-glories, dodders, and sweet potatoes
- The starchy tubers of the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) are a common root vegetable
- Yams (Dioscorea species), with which sweet potatoes are often confused, are in their own monocot family, Dioscoreaceae
- Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) are in the Nightshade family (Solanaceae), which is in the same order, Solanales, as is the Morning-glory family
- The seeds of some species contain toxic ergoline alkaloids (Steiner 2008) produced in association with a fungus
- Ergot (clavicipitalean) fungi produce ergoline alkaloids only when in contact with the host plant
- Fungi colonize the plants’ leaf surfaces and are transmitted, along with the alkaloids, on the seeds
- The alkaloids provide drought tolerance and have psychoactive properties, which inhibit herbivory by insects and mammals
- The host plant and fungi benefit each other (mutualistic relationship) as the fungus gets carbohydrates formed through photosynthesis by the plant
- Ancient Mesoamericans engineered a pliable rubber by mixing the latex sap of the morning-glory species Ipomoea alba with latex from the Castilla elastica tree to create solid rubber balls used in ritual games (Hosler, et al. 1999)
- Some species are used as purgatives (Austin 1997)
- Several species of bindweeds are aggressive agricultural pests
- Non-native bindweed Convolvulus arvensis, which occurs at Edgewood, is listed as a Noxious Weed by the California Department of Agriculture
- Scientific name from the genus Convolvulus, from the Latin convolvere, “to wind around”
- Represented by 6 species at Edgewood
Specific References
Austin, D.F. 1997. Convolvulaceae (Morning Glory Family). Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
Hosler, D., Burkett, S., and Tarkanian, M. 1999. Prehistoric Polymers: Rubber Processing in Ancient Mesoamerica. Science 18 Jun 1999: Vol. 284, Issue 5422, pp. 1988-1991.
Steiner, U., Hellwig, S., and Leistner, E. 2008. Specificity in the interaction between an epibiotic clavicipitalean fungus and its convolvulaceous host in a fungus/plant symbiotum. Plant Signaling & Behavior, 3(9), 704–706.
