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Ipomoea mauritiana; photograph (c) Bruno - Yolande Zanette, some rights reserved (CC BY) CC BY(c) Bruno - Yolande Zanette, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2026-03-20

Ipomoea mauritiana Jacq.

Forest Morning Glory; Giant Potato; Natal Cotton Plant; Mauritanian convolvulus

Convolvulaceae · Cape Verde, Benin +58

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Ipomoea mauritiana, photograph (c) Bruno - Yolande Zanette, some rights reserved (CC BY)Ipomoea mauritiana, photograph (c) Bruno - Yolande Zanette, some rights reserved (CC BY)Ipomoea mauritiana, photograph (c) Mmatjie Mashao, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Ipomoea mauritiana, photograph (c) Mmatjie Mashao, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Ipomoea mauritiana, photograph (c) Mmatjie Mashao, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Ipomoea mauritiana, photograph (c) Gary Yong Gee, some rights reserved (CC BY) 59 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
16.0°C
Record low 11.1 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
32°C
Feb at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
1,177mm
10 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
25–37DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in the habitat's months, not shifted
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
A sharp rainy season, April to July and September to October (the habitat's months, not shifted), in a year of even temperature. rain rule, CHELSA
Not shifted: the shift rule does not apply to this habitat. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Ipomoea mauritiana is a type of morning glory plant. Like the sweet potato, it belongs to the genus Ipomoea. It grows as a vine.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Ipomoea mauritiana", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Ipomoea

Ipomoea is the largest genus in the plant family Convolvulaceae, with over 600 species. It is a large and diverse group, with common names including morning glory, water Convolvulus or water spinach, sweet potato, bindweed, moonflower, etc. The genus occurs throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world, and comprises annual and perennial herbaceous plants, lianas, shrubs, and small trees; most of the species are twining climbing plants.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Ipomoea", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the median year's rain (844 mm of 1,138 mm) falls in April to July and September to October. The temperature curve is flat, 3.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere. The habitat lies within 10° of the equator, where the shift rule does not apply, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

Rain

1,138 mm in the median year at the habitat, 844 mm of it April to July and September to October. Wettest month June at 167 mm, driest month January at 12 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,021 mm to 3,022 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 1,177 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 1,138 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 37 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 20, the highest 90th-percentile month 40).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 16.0 °C, the absolute minimum 11.1 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.9 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 21.9 °C in August (across the grid cells of the range 16.8 °C to 23.7 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 31.8 °C in February (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 16.0 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 61 to 67% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected +53 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Ipomoea mauritiana through the yearWarmest month February, mean daily high 32 °C; coldest month August, mean nightly low 21.9 °C; 1,138 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.10°15°20°25°30°35°40°35.9° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER11.1° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 25–37RH 61–67%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 142 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C31 / 27–3532 / 27–3631 / 27–3631 / 26–3430 / 24–3329 / 22–3128 / 22–2928 / 23–2929 / 23–3030 / 24–3130 / 25–3330 / 26–34
Night °C23 / 20–2424 / 22–2524 / 22–2524 / 21–2524 / 19–2523 / 16–2422 / 16–2422 / 17–2422 / 18–2422 / 19–2423 / 20–2423 / 20–24
Rain mm12 / 7–32333 / 15–26484 / 49–279118 / 74–296148 / 48–359167 / 43–335137 / 37–228102 / 43–241154 / 55–222120 / 63–23446 / 12–22217 / 6–289
DLI35 / 30–3937 / 31–4035 / 32–3934 / 27–3731 / 23–3327 / 20–3026 / 21–3125 / 24–3429 / 26–3931 / 28–3933 / 30–3833 / 29–39
RH %61 / 48–6762 / 50–6662 / 56–6664 / 60–6866 / 60–6967 / 58–7067 / 58–7067 / 59–7067 / 61–7066 / 61–7065 / 58–6863 / 51–68

Records on both sides of the equator: the 17 cells at least 10° north of it have seasons six months apart and are left out, not combined into a year no place has. These figures are across the 142 cells that remain: the 30 at least 10° south and the 112 within 10° of the equator, which stay in either way.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 142 grid cells holding the 320 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 1660:3652 (6.975, 2.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 11.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 16.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.9 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 142 distinct grid cells holding 320 of the 339 in-range records on the southern side of the equator (17 cells poleward of 10° north, 30 poleward of 10° south: the two sides' seasons are not combined, and cells within 10° of the equator stay in); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1660:3652 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 7.00_2.500, lapse-corrected +53 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 124 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeCape Verde, Benin, Burkina, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Zaïre, Chad, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, KwaZulu-Natal, Comoros, Mauritius, Madagascar, Réunion, Rodrigues, Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, French Guiana, Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil West-Central, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North · introduced: Seychelles, China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Kazan-retto, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Andaman Is., Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nicobar Is., Thailand, Vietnam, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Philippines, Sulawesi, Christmas I., New Guinea, Northern Territory, Queensland, Fiji, New Caledonia, Caroline Is., Leeward Is. AB Ant, Trinidad-Tobago, Windward Is. · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker6.974, 2.167 · in the densest population, 364 records (39% of those in range)
Kew's description“climbing tuberous geophyte” · “seasonally dry tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 940 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 320 of them in the land cells it reads, of 339 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 851 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 286 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 601 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 940 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Ipomoea mauritiana, photograph 1did not loadIpomoea mauritiana, photograph 2did not loadIpomoea mauritiana, photograph 3did not loadIpomoea mauritiana, photograph 4did not loadIpomoea mauritiana, photograph 5did not loadIpomoea mauritiana, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Bruno - Yolande Zanette, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Mmatjie Mashao, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (3); (c) Gary Yong Gee, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Rauvolfia vomitoria Rauvolfia vomitoria Poison devil's-pepper Photo: CC BY, Dégboé Etienne HouédotéDracaena surculosa Dracaena surculosa Gold dust dracaena Photo: CC0, author not statedHeterotis rotundifolia Heterotis rotundifolia Pinklady Photo: CC BY, nebrooksCeltis mildbraedii Celtis mildbraedii Red-fruited Stinkwood Photo: CC BY-SA, higgyPentodon pentandrus Pentodon pentandrus Hale's pentodon Photo: CC0, author not statedCola nitida Cola nitida Kola nut Photo: CC0, author not stated

Other Ipomoea 106 in the reference

Ipomoea aitonii Convolvulaceae Ipomoea alba Ipomoea alba Moonflower Photo: CC BY, Brandon CorderIpomoea albivenia Ipomoea albivenia Climbing Kapok Photo: CC0, author not statedIpomoea amnicola Ipomoea amnicola Redcenter morning-glory Photo: CC0, author not statedIpomoea anisomeres Ipomoea anisomeres Convolvulaceae Photo: CC BY, Alexis López HernándezIpomoea aquatica Ipomoea aquatica Swamp morning-glory Photo: CC BY, renjus boxIpomoea arborescens Ipomoea arborescens Tree Morning Glory Photo: CC BY-SA, Adrian BojorquezIpomoea asarifolia Ipomoea asarifolia Ginger-leaf morning-glory Photo: CC BY, Marcello Mastroianni Albuquerque AraújoIpomoea bahiensis Ipomoea bahiensis Convolvulaceae Photo: CC BY, Paulo NogueiraIpomoea batatas Ipomoea batatas Sweet potato Photo: CC BY, winterfamilyIpomoea biflora Ipomoea biflora Bellvine Photo: CC BY, 如此甚好Ipomoea bolusiana Ipomoea bolusiana Narrowleaf Morning Glory Photo: CC0, dune_ninja all 107 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Apopleumon bignonioides; Batatas bignoniodes; Batatas bignonioides; Batatas edulis var. platanifolia; Batatas insignis and 36 more. (GBIF Backbone)

Under another author Ipomoea digitata A.Meeuse and Ipomoea digitata Baker & Rendle is an older name of this species, not Ipomoea digitata, a species of the reference. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Convolvulaceae
Described by
Jacq.
Native to
Cape Verde, Benin, Burkina +57
Wild records
940 in range · 851 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 19 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (17 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 2 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 7.00_2.500, lapse-corrected +53 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 145 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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