Id needed on a flowering creeper

[Cedric]

Hi, I've just come back from Bangaluru, a wonderful self drive trip from there up into the Western Ghats then down to the Northern Kerala coast in India where I saw and collected some wonderful plants seeds and cuttings.  I can't get an ID on this charming creeper growing up the fence at the hotel behind some coconut groves in Bangalore. It was covered in the purest blue little flower bunches even in the semi-shade of the palms as this one is in the picture, more so in full sun, leaves heart shaped.... Unfortunately there weren't any seed capsules or seedlings but I definitely want to get some seed. Doesn't look like an annual. I should've tried a cutting but didn't get around to it. Anyone know what it is? Looks like some kind of Convolvulus the flower being very similar to many I know but......

Should be fully tropical as the temps there in winter or dry season drift around 25 - 28 degrees with pleasant slightly cooler nights through the coldest months, never much bellow 24%C/77F at the coolest.

Any help would be appreciated. Im sure something as charming, blue and floriferous must be commonly grown as a garden plant, maybe Australia...

[Cedric]

Oooops just found it, fabulous name, Jacquemonti violacea, now pentanthos. Listed as Indian but also elsewhere listed as an endangered native of Florida where it's rare!?

[DoomsDave]

Wow!

At first glance, looks almost exactly like Ipomeia "Heavenly Blue"!

[Cedric]

Yah, in fact the flowers, and what threw me look identical to Convolvulus mauritanicus "blue moon". Looked so absolutely familiar and yet so completely different as a climber with green heart shaped leaves.

Apparently also native to the West Indies.......bit like Roystonia story in Florida. Flowers all year with biggest flush in winter, dry season.

This is C. mauritanicus. You can see if you only saw the flower, with or without an eye loop perhapse.......

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2016 by Cedric

[Cedric]

Gets "curiouser and curiouser".

The unfortunate but remarkable Victor Jacquemont after whom Jacquemonti pentanthos is named.  After a year spent in NY from Paris he went to Haiti ostensibly to fight a duel over Napoleon as duelling was illegal in America. Then he traveled back to America doing some collecting briefly up the East Coast and Canada before leaving for India where he died on a diet of "Chepatties" and milk in Bombay aged thirty one, three years after arriving on the India subcontinent.

Leaving behind the huge and informative "Jacquemont's magnum opus".  "Voyage dans l'Inde pendant les années 1828 à 1832 was published posthumously between 1841 and 1844 in Paris in 80 parts and collected into six folio volumes (four text volumes and two volumes of illustrations). Plus all of his correspondence to his parents, colleagues, and many friends".

 

[Cedric]

Just a quick bump for anyone interested in finding Jaquemontia pentanthos seed. It isn't terribly easily available unless you live in Brazil. Plants themselves seem reasonably available at some specialist native plant nurseries in Florida, least they were, sites can be notoriously bad at updates, the few I contacted didn't have any at the time even though pictured as stock on their sites.  If you don't live in the US I've discovered with delight the online seed shop "The Sample Seed Shop" in the US seems to be the only people selling the seed, limited to two packets of ten seeds or so. Sampleseeds.com

Im over the moon to have just received the seed. I was gearing up for a very hard time getting any at all. Apparently J. pentanthos is quite hard to germinate so the hard part will begin beginning of the rainy season next year, hope the seed remains viable until then.

One more quest partially complete. Growing it here might be a different story, though.  We've just had three weeks solid tropical down pour even the water-lilies are battered to pieces!

BTW This creeper is not the rampant monster we associate with morning glory or god forbid bind-weed, it's very elegant and well behaved and the flowers are in lovely clusters that keep on flowering all year climaxing in the dry season, it's also a perennial not an annual. Would also be a lovely thing for a conservatory in colder climates.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Cedric