Provided
Sometimes you go to one of those fancy indoor or outdoor settings—maybe a big wedding reception under a tent. There will be a couple of tables with a nice white tablecloth and plenty of goodies piled on top, along with a scrub-faced little boy whose job is to shoo away flies. I’m thinking of the kind of get-together where they’re not just serving Vienna sausages on paper plates (though there might be some of those little barbecue weenies served with a toothpick) or Cheetos. And I’m a big fan of all these items.
Try a blue cheese gougère. And what about those lovely prawn cocktail cups? It wouldn’t be a fancy party without some mouth-watering trout roulades, I’m telling you. You’ll need to carefully use the silver server to load these onto your little plate. Be careful. And, of course, you need to dish these items off the surface of a beautiful, shiny silver plate.
This shiny, silver plate is sometimes called a "salver," and it is sometimes equipped with a pedestal at the base, elevating the plate above all the carnations and ferns so you can easily get to the goodies. The word “salver” is essentially a fancy word for what most people would call a tray; the word ultimately comes from Latin. You might be wondering why this Mystery Plant column is involved with the meaning of the word "salver," so here it is:
The flowers of this plant are “salverform.” That’s the term botanists like to use. More specifically, it is the corolla of the flower that is salverform, consisting of a long, hollow tube made up of five fused petals and a flattened (more or less) upper part, formed by the lobes of the petals. The corolla tube is like a pedestal, and the flaring lobes up top are plate-shaped—like a salver.
Our Mystery Plant is in the morning glory family. You may recall that most morning glories, especially the cultivated kinds, usually have a more funnel-shaped corolla tube, not salverform. There are nearly 2,000 species in this family, and as native plants, they’re distributed all over the world in temperate and tropical regions. Many of these species are viny, either climbing or crawling (sometimes both). The scientific name for this family is "Convolvulaceae," which comes from Latin, meaning “to twine” or “bind.”
Our mystery morning glory is native to eastern North America, although there is some debate about this. It is found along railroad tracks and roadsides from New York to the Midwest and down to Texas. The leaves are heart-shaped, and those corollas offer an array of colors: often bright red, but sometimes orangish or even salmon-colored. The ovary of each flower forms a small, papery capsule containing several seeds. The plants can form a tangle of vines, which can be a bit annoying in large numbers. But butterflies love them, and the vines might be covering up an old trash pile
John Nelson is the retired curator of the Herbarium at the University of South Carolina. As a public service, the Herbarium offers free plant identifications. For more information, call 803-777-8175 or email johnbnelson@sc.rr.com.
[Answer: "Scarlet creeper," Ipomoea coccinea]
