English: Wild turmeric; Dwarf morning-glory; Slender dwarf morning-glory; Tropical speedwell.
Region: tropical and subtropical Americas; widely spread through most dry tropical and subtropical regions of the world, Australasia, Indomalaya, Polynesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Americas.
Habitat: tropics and subtropics; from marshland and wet forests to deserts; sandy, open, dry grassland, thornveld, rocky localities, waste places, arable or pastoral land; on limestone; low and medium altitudes.
Genus: 100 species.
Content: flavonols, saponins, tannins, steroids, glycosides, terpenoids, reducing sugars, amino acids, gums, mucilages; ergot alkaloids, amides of the indole derivative D-lysergic acid; scopoletin, umbelliferone, scopolin and 2-methyl-1,2,3,4-butanetetrol; 1,3-di-O-caffeoyl quinic acid methyl ester; long-chain alkanes, butanetriol, esters of ferulic acid and caffeoyl-quinic acid, caffeic acid; the coumarin derivatives scopoletin, scopoline, umbelliferone; several kaempferol and sitosterol derivatives.
drowsiness, stupor and reduced mobility; higher doses tested were neither lethal nor toxic.
Use: medicinal; fragrant smoke to perfume houses; for psychotropic and nootropic properties; charm worn as a girdle or bracelet to procure love, favours, against evil spirits, after childbirth; ornamental; grazed by all stock; Ayurvedic medicine; traditional medicine.
BotanyHerb; very variable; annual or perennial; thinly or sometimes rather densely covered with long, silky hairs.
Root: deep root system.
Stem: slender; more or less branched stems; somewhat woody; 12 to 70 cm long; prostrate to erect.
Leaves: alternate, simple and entire; stipules absent; petiole up to 3 mm long; blade elliptical to ovate-oblong or lanceolate to linear-oblong, 5 to 45 mm, by 1 to 15 mm, acute or rounded at both ends, distinctly mucronate, white silky-hairy on both surfaces; bitter.
Inflorescence: axillary, isolated or grouped in pauciflorous cymes.
Flowers: bisexual; filiform peduncles, 5 to 55 mm long; sepals villous, lanceolate, 3 to 4 mm long; petals 5, rounded, symmetrical, blue, rarely white, 7 to 10 mm in diameter; stamens with filiform filaments, united at the base of the corolla tube; ovary glabrous, superior, ovoid to globose, 2-celled, each cell with 2 ovules, styles 2, free from the base, each forked, stigmas 4, long, terete or subclavate.
Pollination: by numerous insect species, honey bees.
Fruit: globular capsule, with four valves, with four seeds; 3 to 4 mm long, glabrous.
Seeds: ovoid; 1.5 mm long, brown to black, smooth, glabrous.
Literaturehttp://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Evolvulus+alsinoides.
Region: tropical and subtropical Americas; widely spread through most dry tropical and subtropical regions of the world.
Habitat: tropics and subtropics; sandy, open, dry grassland, rocky localities; on limestone; low and medium altitudes.
Content: flavonols, saponins; ergot alkaloids, amides of the indole derivative D-lysergic acid.
Use: medicinal; fragrant smoke to perfume houses.
BotanyHerb; very variable; perennial.
Root: deep root system.
Stem: slender; more or less branched stems; somewhat woody; 12 to 70 cm long; prostrate to erect.
Literaturehttp://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Evolvulus+alsinoides