Encyclopedia of the Morning Glories

Interspecific hybrid of the morning glory, Ipomoea nil

Copyright 1998-2022 Yoshiaki Yoneda

Morning glories x Relatives, Relatives x Relatives

The varied morning glory was crossbred by collecting the gene mutants that occurred in one biological species of Ipomoea nil and combining them. Since then, it has been generally supposed that richer changes would be made by crossing the varied morning glory with closely related species. In particular, Ipomoea purpurea, the common morning glory, has abundant variation because it has been bred for a long time in Europe and North America. Yoshitaka Imai and Tokio Hagiwara tried crossing Ipomoea nil with Ipomoea purpurea, but were not successful. The author was able to get over this obstacle in 1975 by crossbreeding an African strain of Ipomoea nil with Ipomoea purpurea.



Edited by Yuuji Tsukii (Lab. Biology, Science Research Center, Hosei University)