Photo: S.MORE, via iNaturalist, public domain / CC0. Unmodified apart from resizing.
Colour
blue, purple, white
Region
Singapore and tropical Asia
Season
year-round
Shape
trumpet
Identification
A large evergreen vine climbing to 20 m with a long root system and a deep taproot; young stems green, pubescent and square, old ones brown, round and woody. Opposite leaves on stalks up to 10 cm, very variable from ovate and cordate to triangular or angularly lobed, up to 22 cm long, rough above, with three to five veins from the base. Large funnel flowers, pale blue-violet with a pale yellow or white throat, about 7 cm across, in hanging strings. The epithet means large-flowered.
Habitat
Hill scrub, forest edge and river banks at 400–1,500 m; widely planted on pergolas, walls and in parks, naturalised and even invasive in many places.
Distribution
Native to India, Indochina and China's Fujian, Hainan, Guangxi and Guangdong; very common on Singapore's pergolas and in its parks, commonly grown in southern China, and in Japan only cultivated in Okinawa.
Season and behaviour
Flowers almost all year in the tropics, most after the rains; June to November in southern China. Each flower lasts a day or two and a pergola has new flowers daily.
Photography tips
These are the FilmAnalysis editors' notes, not content from the sources.
Pale blue-violet bleaches in direct sun and is true only in soft light or half shade; against the light the pale yellow throat shows. The hanging strings suit an upward view against sky or dark leaves. The heart-shaped, rough leaves want side light. With so many flowers, shoot a string rather than one.
Photographic styles
Blue-violet trumpets hanging from a pergola; pale colour in tropical green.
Similar species
Laurel clockvine (lanceolate entire leaves, similar flowers); black-eyed Susan vine (small orange flowers with black eye, herbaceous); morning glories (herbaceous, Convolvulaceae, smaller).
Related badge
None yet. No validated photo recognition exists for this species, so no badge is tied to it: a name in the encyclopedia is not evidence in a photograph.
The illustration is original FilmAnalysis artwork. The photograph is from iNaturalist; its licence and author are under it.
Why it is listed: this species comes from the Flower checklist (GBIF backbone and Wikidata verified). Names follow the GBIF backbone and Wikidata; the facts follow the sources below; photo recognition is not offered.
