Ipomoea alba L.

Calonyction aculeatum (L.) House, Calonyction aculeatum var. lobatum (Hallier f.) C.Y. Wu, Calonyction album (L.) House, Calonyction bona-nox (L.) Bojer, Calonyction bona-nox var. lobatum Hallier f., Calonyction pulcherrimum Parodi, Calonyction speciosum Choisy, Convolvulus aculeatus L., Convolvulus aculeatus var. bona-nox (L.) Kuntze, Convolvulus bona-nox (L.) Spreng., Convolvulus pulcherrimus Vell., Ipomoea aculeata (L.) Kuntze, Ipomoea aculeata var. bona-nox (L.) Kuntze, Ipomoea bona-nox L.

Convolvulaceae

Evening Glory, Giant Moonflower, Good-Night Flower, Moon Flower, Moon-Flower, Moonflower, Moonflower Vine, Moon Vine, Moonvine, Prickly Ipomoea, Tropical White Morning Glory, Tropical White Morning-Glory, White Morning Glory, White-Flowered Morning Glory

The species is indigenous to tropical and subtropical regions of the New World, from South America (French Guiana, Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and Argentina) to Central America (Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Mexico) and the Caribbean (Bahamas, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti) to Florida in the Southeastern United States.

The species has become widely naturalized in the tropical regions of the world, including Asia (Indonesia, Japan (Ryukyu Islands), Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand) and many Pacific islands (American Samoa, French Polynesia, Hawaii, Tonga, New Caledonia, Fiji and the Galapagos Islands) and in Australia—southeastern and central Queensland and the coastal districts of northern New South Wales. It has also naturalized in Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island.

The species thrives in a warm and humid climate. This species has escaped cultivation and invaded watercourses, riparian areas, moist forests, urban bushland and disturbed areas (e.g. in parks and along roadsides and railway lines) in the subtropical and tropical regions of the world.

Bundles of unopened flowers are sold in the markets in Brunei where the people consumed it as vegetable (Ng 2011). Young leaves and fleshy calyces are cooked or steamed and eaten as a vegetable or used in curries, soups, stews, etc. (Facciola 1990). The immature seeds are also consumed. In China, leafy shoots and fleshy sepals are eaten as potherbs; dried flowers are used for soup and also in pastries in Yunnan (Hu 2005).

A scrambling or climbing perennial or annual herbaceous liana with twining, glabrous up to 10 m long stem with soft prickles and milky sap. Leaves are alternate, large, 10–20 by 5–16 cm, ovate to circular in outline, entire or slightly trilobed with acuminate to mucronulate tips and cordate bases, glabrous and borne on 5–20 cm long petioles. Inflorescences in axillary helicoids cymes, 1-several flowered, peduncle stout and bracts small and deciduous. Flowers are nocturnal, fragrant, slightly zygomorphic and borne on 7–15 cm long pedicels. Sepals 5, elliptic to ovate, leathery, glabrous and strongly mucronate. Corolla salverform (trumpet shaped), tube greenish white, 7–12 cm long and 5 mm in diameter, lobes white, spreading, shallowly 5-undulate (Plate 1). Stamens 5, white and exerted. Style exserted with bilobed stigma. Ovary narrowly conical and glabrous. Fruit an ovoid capsule, 2.5–3 cm, apiculate. Seeds white, brown or black and glabrous.