Please try our next iteration of the Michigan Flora Online here. Beginning on February 1, 2023, michiganflora.net will point to this new site.

The new site offers several benefits over the existing website, including real coordinate mapping, giving a clearer view of the density of documentation as well as more precision about plant distributions and their link to landforms. We will also have the ability to update species pages more regularly, both in terms of new collections and as more existing Michigan specimens are georeferenced. In addition, we have a better photo display, and offer indented keys.

Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam. is the cultivated sweet-potato (often called “yam,” a name more strictly applying to the monocot genus Dioscorea).

1. Corolla salverform, red, with stamens and pistil conspicuously exserted; sepals with subulate subterminal appendages; leaves deeply and ± palmately divided into narrow lanceolate segments.

I. ×multifida

1. Corolla funnelform, blue to purple or white, with stamens and pistil shorter; sepals various; leaves not divided or only broadly 3–5-lobed.

2. Stems glabrous or nearly so; sepals obtuse to rounded, at most hispidulous toward margin beneath (more uniformly hispidulous above).

I. pandurata

2. Stems pubescent; sepals acute or acuminate, with long stiff hairs beneath, especially toward base.

3. Calyx ca. 17–25 mm long, the sepal lobes narrowed to prolonged linear-acuminate tips; peduncles rarely as long as calyx (flowers often nearly sessile).

I. hederacea

3. Calyx ca. 11–15 (–16) mm long, the sepal lobes ± oblong and acute; peduncles longer than the calyx.

I. purpurea