Ipomoea

Carl Linnaeus opened Species Plantarum in 1753 and needed a name for a genus of twining vines that had arrived in Europe from the Americas. He reached into Greek: ips (ἴψ), the worm that bores through wood and bindweed alike, and homoios (ὅμοιος), resembling. The result was Ipomoea — worm-like — for plants whose stems spiral around any support they find.

The genus is vast. Ipomoea batatas is the sweet potato, domesticated in the Andes by 3000 BCE and carried across the Pacific long before European contact. Ipomoea tricolor is the morning glory whose seeds contain ergine, a chemical cousin of LSD, used ceremonially by the Mazatec in Oaxaca. Ipomoea aquatica is water spinach, a staple across Southeast Asia.

Before Linnaeus, the plants had scattered names: bindweed, convolvulus, jalap. Jalap itself is from Xalapa, Veracruz, where Ipomoea purga grows wild and its roots were sold as a powerful purgative from the 1600s through the 19th century. The unifying genus name gave these disparate plants a common identity.

The worm metaphor is precise. Ipomoea stems don't grab the way a vine might — they wind, turn, encircle. In English, the word stayed technical, botanical, reserved for the greenhouse catalog and the field guide. But morning glories climb garden fences in July all the same, doing exactly what their name says.