PLANTS: Trees, shrubs, herbs, or vines, the sap milky in some species; rootstocks swollen and fleshy to fibrous.

LEAVES: simple, entire to pinnately lobed, pectinate, or palmately compound, exstipulate.

INFLORESCENCE: axillary cymes, racemes, panicles, or flowers solitary.

FLOWERS: perfect (in ours), actinomorphic, hypogynous, small and inconspicuous to large and showy, but mostly wilting quickly; sepals 5, distinct, imbricate, equal or unequal, persistent, occasionally accrescent in fruit; petals 5 united; stamens 5, distinct, epipetalous; pistil of 2-3(-6) carpels, the ovary 1-4-locular, the styles 1-2, the stigmas variable.

FRUITS: capsules, utricles, or baccate.

SEEDS: 1-4, glabrous or pubescent.

NOTES: About 55 genera, 1200 spp.; most common in the tropics and sub-tropics. Includes sweet potato

REFERENCES: Austin, Daniel F. 1998. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Convolvulaceae 30(2): 61.

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine