[Ipomoea aegyptia L.; I. pentaphylla (L.) Jacq.; Operculina aegyptia (L.) House]
(nat?) Hairy merremia, koali kua hulu, kuahulu
Vines; stems twining, herbaceous, up to 4 m or more long, usually reddish hirsute with long, erect to suberect hairs. Leaves palmately compound with 5 leaflets, these elliptic, both surfaces sparsely pubescent to glabrate, margins entire to dentate, apex and base acuminate to acute. Flowers in cymes, usually on long peduncles, pedicels 1-2 cm long, bracts scale-like; sepals oblong, ca. 2 cm long, hirsute with yellowish erect hairs, apex acute; corolla white, campanulate, 2-3 cm long, glabrous. Capsules tan to pale brown, subglobose, 1-2 cm in diameter, subtended and partially surrounded by the somewhat enlarged calyx. Seeds often 4, usually tan, glabrous. [2n = 28, 30.] Pantropical; in Hawaii naturalized or perhaps indigenous, common in dry, disturbed sites, 0-100(-350) m, on all of the main islands except Niihau. First collected on Hawaii by D. Nelson in 1779 (St. John, 1978e).—Plate 73.