Invasiveness and Colonizing Ability of Ipomoea carnea Jacq. and Attempts at its Management.

Ipomoea carnea Jacq., also called Ipomoea fistulosa, is among the world's 100 most invasive weeds. Its ability to grow explosively on land as well as in wetlands gives it a unique competitive advantage over other major weeds like Lantana, Prosopis and water hyacinth, which are either aquatic or terrestrial. This paper presents an overview of the invasiveness and colonizing ability of Ipomoea in the context of the its attributes that facilitate its spread. The manner in which Ipomoea infestation harms the environmental health is also described. The numerous ways that have been explored to utilize Ipomoea have been enumerated. In the context of the inadequacy of these attempts, an emerging technology, which promises to solve the Ipomoea problem, is described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]