In article ,
Janet Tweedy writes:
|
| I am now totally confused as I have seen pictures of the darker flowers
| on the web and in books and also pictures of the baby/sky blue colour I
| saw last year. Could there be different strains of this then?
| The Ipomea in Swallowfield had set what looked like early seed pods and
| I planted them but nothing germinated.

Given that David has confirmed my memory, if it has seed pods, it is
NOT I. indica. No ifs or buts. I. indica does not set seed.

There are something like 500 species, of which at least half a dozen
are in cultivation and will grow outside in the UK during the summer;
quite possibly, several of the others will, too. The cultivars of
the commonly grown species (see below) are very variable in size and
colour, so odds on it is one of them.

There has been a fair amount of botanical renaming, too, and I have
never worked out what the situation is between I. nil, I. purpurea,
I. triloba (a synonym of I. nil?) and I. tricolor. I believe that
there are also hybrids. I can state definitely that there is a HELL
of a lot of confusion on the Web and in books over this, and even
quite respectable books conflict badly with each other, so I am in
good company.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.