Western morning glory is a trailing or weakly climbing perennial from a woody caudex with light green, finely tomentose herbage.  The leaves are alternate, triangular-hastate, to about 2" long, with the lobes fairly distinct and rounded or two-tipped.  The basal lobes are 1/2 to almost as long as the main central lobe.  The flowers are solitary and appear on slender peduncles with narrowly-linear to widely triangular bractlets 3/16" to 1-1/8" long, lobed like the leaves, and positioned 1/8" to 7/16" below the calyx. The sepals are unequal, oblong, pubescent and usually mucronate, and the corolla is white to cream-colored with linear stigmas.  The fruit is a spheric, ± inflated capsule with dark, minutely reticulate-ridged seeds.  Western morning glory, which formerly was named Calystegia fulcrata and before that Convolvulus fulcrata, is found on dry slopes and in mountain pine woods of the Transverse and Peninsular Ranges from 4000' to 8500', blooming from May to August.  These pictures were taken in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Calystegia 2) occidentalis 3) fulcrata.
Pronunciation: kal-i-STEE-jee-a ok-si-den-TAY-lis ful-KRAY-ta.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.