Monday, June 20, 2011

Flower Photo: Morning Glory There's Over 1,000 Species !


These Morning Glories were growing at a beach near my house in Okinawa, Japan.  It was in the morning, too.  But, I've also seen Morning Glories growing on tall vines up in the mountains.  The ones in the hills are the same color as these in the photo but, they must not pay attention to the time of day it is up there.  The ones in the mountains don't close their flowers in the afternoon.  They just keep blooming all day long.

Doing a little research at the WIKIPEDIA CHANNEL I discovered there are over 1,000 species of these flowers and they've been used as more than just ornamental plants. Morning Glories have served as medicine, food and used in the process of making vulcanized rubber a couple of thousand years before that Goodyear Tire guy was even born. Imagine that !

Down Mexico way, some priests figured a way to get hallucinogenic drugs out of the things, too.

Do you have Morning Glories growing where you live ? 

You probably shouldn't eat them unless you really know what you're doing !


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6 comments:

Muza-chan said...

Beautiful picture, I love Morning Glory :)

RyukyuMike said...

Muza-chan,
Thanks. Hope you don't eat them!

Ryan said...

Who knew they could be so useful.

RyukyuMike said...

Ryan,
Yep, they're just weeds to me but, valuable to someone else!

Julia said...

Yeahy, we're always on the lookout for a bit of flower identification. These flowers grow EVERYWHERE in this part of Turkey. I love them but have never planted any because they look quite invasive - and I'm a very lazy gardener! :) A lot of people use them as shades for their verandahs here.

RyukyuMike said...

Julia,
Yep, I really think they are just pretty weeds. But if you Google them, some folks buy weed seeds !