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Ipomoea alba
Also called Moonflower or moon vine, Moonflower, Lilac Bell, White Moonflower, White Morning Glory
A night-blooming tropical climbing vine with large, fragrant white or pink flowers that open in the evening and close by morning. Grow it in full sun on a support, and sow the nicked seed soaked overnight.
Ipomoea alba, known in English as white tropical morning glory, evening glory, moonflower or moonvine, is a species of night-blooming morning glory, native to tropical and subtropical regions of North and South America, from Argentina to northern Mexico, Arizona, Florida and the West Indies. Though formerly classified as genus Calonyction, species aculeatum, it is now properly assigned to genus Ipomoea, subgenus Quamoclit, section Calonyction.
The species is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant for its flowers. In areas too cold for winter survival, it can be grown as an annual plant. Since it is of tropical origin, it flowers best under a summer short-day photoperiod. Though it can be successfully flowered in the north, its flowering is impaired by excessively long summer days. Thus, at higher latitudes it often does not set buds and bloom until early autumn, when daylight length is once again near 12 hours.
Propagation is usually by seed. The seed resembles a small, brownish nut, and should be nicked with a file and then soaked overnight before planting.
Swamp morning-glory · Ginger-leaf morning-glory · Sweet potato · Mile a minute vine · Gloria de la manana · Redstar · Ipomoea corymbosa · Lady Doorly's morning-glory · Beach morning-glory · Oceanblue Morning Glory · Whitestar · Spanish Flag
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ipomoea alba by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
