Ipomoea pes-caprae (L.)R.Br. subsp. brasiliensis (L.)Ooststr.

RAILROAD VINE; BAYHOPS

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St. John (1970) treated this taxon at the species rank and characterized it as pantropical (absent from northern Indian Ocean) with leaf blades mostly longer than wide, unlobed or with lobe sinus less than 1/5 the length of the blade, lobes ascending, outer sepals 5-13 mm long, and cymes 1-20 flowered. Ipomoea pes-caprae subsp. pes-caprae is restricted to the northern Indian Ocean and has leaf blades wider than long, the lobe sinus 1/3-1/5 of the length of the blade, lobes divergent, outer sepals 7-12 mm long, and cymes 1-2 flowered. The two taxa apparently do not hybridize, or perhaps only rarely (Miryeganeh et al. 2014). Others chose to treat I. brasiliensis as a synonym of I. pes-caprae (Flora of China, vol. 16; Wood et al. 2020). This species apparently accumulates a relatively low amount of ergot alkaloids in its seeds (Amor-Prats & Harborne 1993), presumably via the endophytic ascomycete Periglandula.

Native FAC (NWPL)