IPOMOEA SPLENDOR-SYLVAE

Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter

from the December 18, 2011 Newsletter issued from Hacienda Chichen Resort beside Chichén Itzá Ruins; limestone bedrock; elevation ~39m (~128ft), N20.675°, W88.569°; central Yucatán state, MÉXICO
A DARK-EYED, VIOLACEOUS MORNING-GLORY
Along trails out in the forest often you see a species with blossoms raised high above its leaf level, its flowers stretching toward sunlight, as seen at the top of this page. You can see its dark center (and a basking skipper) below:

Its pale green, oval, broadly overlapping, thin-edged sepals, the outer ones shorter than the inner, are shown below:

All these features seem to narrow the species to this: IPOMOEA TILIACEA*

*UPDATE: At least, Ipomoea tiliacea seemed to be the name back in 2011. In 2024, when much more information is available on the Internet, when I uploaded the above images to the iNaturalist website, user "alexiz," who specializes in Mexican members of the Morning-glory Family, recognized IPOMOEA SPLENDOR-SYLVAE, a climbing perennial occurring from southern Mexico south into Costa Rica. It's described as "scattered" throughout its area, possibly because the intact forests it inhabits in that area also is scattered.

Taxonomically, the species is regarded as a member of the Batatas Clade, meaning that it's closely related to the commonly cultivated sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas.