Ipomoea tricolor Cav.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘Of the Genus Ipomoea, as distinguished from Convolvulus, no less than one hundred and sixty-five species are described in Roemer and Schultes.  The species which compose it are chiefly inhabitants of the tropics and remarkable for the beauty of their flowers, which, though they be individually short-lived, are succeeded so rapidly by others that there are few more showy ornaments of the forests in warm countries, or of the stoves in our own; provided there be space enough devoted to the great extent of their stems and branches.  They are rendered valuable too, by the peculiar and well-known properties of some of them.  One species, I. Jalapa, yields the Jalap of the shops, one of the most useful of medicines; whilst another, the I. Batatas, or Sweet Potato, is an important article of food in the tropics, as the Potato is in Europe.  In our collections, the beauty of the flowers has been the chief recommendation of these plants: but there are, perhaps, few, if any, that can equal in this respect the one now under consideration [Ipomoea rubro-caerulea]. […] A twining, glabrous plant, with rounded herbaceous branches, tinged with purple. […] Corolla in bud, white, with the limb of a rich lake red, which, when the flower is fully expanded, becomes of a fine purplish blue.’  [BM t.3297/1834]. Introduced to Britain in 1823.  [JD].

History at Camden Park

Seed ordered from Warner & Warner, Seedsmen and Florists, Cornhill, on 12th April 1846 [MP A2933-1, p.131], although this plant is not listed in The Gardener’s Chronicle advertisement of 12th April, 1845, referred to by Macarthur.  Seed was also ordered from Hurst and McMullen, Seedsmen and Florists of London, on 8th April 1846 [MP A2933-1, p.132].

Notes