This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we’re going snow-blind staring at the radiant blooms of Beach Morning-Glory (Ipomoea imperati).
Beach Morning-Glory can be found sprawled out on beaches nearly the world over, including up and down the South Carolina coastline. It grows upon the beach dunes with low, running vines that cling to the ever-shifting sand until they become entombed beneath its grains. The leaves of Beach Morning-Glory are small, evergreen, with rounded margins and inconsistent lobes, and have a thick leathery texture. All these leaf traits are features to help this plant retain water and resist the harsh unyielding light of the sun. Beach Morning-Glory blooms beginning in June and carries forth new blossoms through to fall. Sometimes it will even bloom year-round! Each flower is up to three inches in breadth, with a fused bugle of pearl-white petals that concentrate around a lemon-yellow center. These flowers provide needed nectar and pollen for seaside pollinators, especially native bees, during the dog days of summer.
As a low perennial vine, Beach Morning-Glory plays an important roll among the cadre of plants that call our Lowcountry beach-dune ecosystem home. It’s on the forefront of the beachfront, working alongside Largeleaf Pennywort to permeate and stabilize the sands at the feet of the dunes. Beach Morning-Glory serves as both a net and miniature silt fence, which buys the time for the Sea Oats and Coastal Panic Grass to creep in and start their work building up new dunes. So the next time you’re open combing Edisto Beach, take a second to appreciate the hard work and long hours in the beating sun that Beach Morning-Glory, and all our other native dune plants, put in to keep our beaches healthy.
