Plant Name
Scientific Name: Merremia tuberosa
Synonyms: Ipomoea tuberosa, Operculina tuberosa
Common Names: Woodrose, Spanish Arborvine, Hawaiian Wood-rose, Wood Rose, Yellow Morning-glory, Spanish Woodbine
Plant Characteristics
Duration: Perennial
Growth Habit: Vine
Hawaii Native Status: Introduced. This naturalized ornamental garden plant is native to Mexico and Central America, but it is now a pantropical weed.
Flower Color: Yellow
Height: To 33 feet (10 m) tall
Description: The flowers are morning-glory-like, funnel-shaped, and 2 1/3 inches (6 cm) across. The flowers are followed by distinctive, shiny, light brown, wooden rose-like seed capsules containing 4 large, black seeds. The unusual seed capsules can be used in dried flower arrangements. The leaves are green, hairless, alternate, and palmately lobed with usually 7 lanceolate to elliptic lobes with pointed, tapering tips. The central leaf lobe is the largest. The stems are slender, hairless, twining, and green near the tips and woody near the base.
Here in Hawaii, Woodrose vines grow in low to middle elevation, mesic (moderately wet) forests.
Special Characteristics
Poisonous – The seeds are poisonous.
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Asteridae
Order: Solanales
Family: Convolvulaceae – Morning-glory family
Genus: Merremia Dennst. ex Endl. – woodrose
Species: Merremia tuberosa (L.) Rendle – Spanish arborvine
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