The Morning Glory (Ipomoea and Convolvulus species):
by Gary Carlin
The Morning Glory includes many genera including, Ipomoea and Convolvulus (Bindweed). The flowers open first thing in the cool of the morning and close later as the day warms. It is a plant that is either loved or hated (hence its names: devil’s guts and hellweed). The aggressive, fast growing bindweed is considered a serious pest, and with root systems over ten to twenty feet deep, it is almost impossible to remove from an area. In some areas of the U.S., several morning glory species are illegal (classified as a federal "noxious weed") to plant, grow, or even possess as they will grow fiercely and choke out all other plants.
3,000 years before Charles Goodyear and vulcanized rubber, ancient Mesopotamians used plant latex and the sulfur in morning glories to make hard rubber balls. Morning glory seeds contain psychedelic chemicals similar to LSD and when ingested, produce hallucinogenic effects. Aztec priests ate the seeds as part of their traditional rituals. As the morning glory grows its twisting stem wraps counterclockwise around anything it encounters, including other plants, trees, poles, and buildings. Thomas Hardy, the great English novelist and poet, called morning glory “withywind” in his book The Return of the Native, as the host plant had to be strong to hold the great mass of vines, each with many flower blooms.
There is an old myth about how the morning glory went from an erect plant to a vine. As a small plant the morning glory heard the happy chirping of new born birds in a nearby tree and wanted to see them. The plant kept stretching itself until it could reach the tree and then continued to stretch even more until it could begin to wrap itself around a tree branch. Then it climbed high into the tree until it reached the nest and could see the birds that were just getting ready to fly.
Another morning glory story tells of a very frail, beautiful princess that could not go out during the hot sunny days to see the beautiful flowers in her garden. So one day as she sat in the garden during the cool of the morning, she cried and her tears turned to seeds. The next morning she came to see her garden and a new plant with beautiful trumpet shaped flowers of all colors were seen on the walls and trees of the garden where the tears had fallen.
Morning glories are considered poisonous but have been used medicinally due to their purgative and cholagogue properties, an ability to stop bleeding, increase bile production from the liver, and assist in intestinal disorders. The seeds were also consumed as a laxative and to kill tapeworms. Native Americans believed it protected them rattlesnakes. It was also used in witchcraft to cast spells in which vines were wrapped around a person prior to a full moon. One only needs to look at Jules Joseph Lefebvre’s painting Nymph with the Morning Glory Flowers to see their great beauty and charm. And starting as early as the ninth century we can thank the Japanese for creating hundreds of new morning glory species.