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.
