red stars

These red stars are known as cypress vine or star glory or hummingbird vine. Lucyriver took the photographs at a relative's house and googled for two hours before finding out the names.

Cypress vine, a tropical American, annual twining vine (Ipomoea quamoclit) of the morning-glory family, with showy, trumpet-shaped, scarlet or white flowers and finely divided pinnate leaves.

Mum says they are called 'firecracker' flowers. She says she has only seen red ones but apparently there are pink and nearly white ones as well.

Here's some information from www.floridata.com

Cypress-vine is a very attractive twining morning-glory with smooth stems, lacy leaves and scarlet flowers. The leaves are 3-4 in (7.6-10.2 cm) long and feather-like, finely divided pinnately into threadlike segments. The scarlet red (rarely white) flowers are tubular, about 1.5 in (3.8 cm) long, and flare out at the mouth into a five-pointed star. Under ideal conditions the vine can climb to 20 ft (6 m) or more, but it is always a dainty, fragile vine and not at all aggressive.

However, according to another info, the whole plant is poisonous if ingested.

The seeds can be obtained from the dried flowers. Lucyriver have tried to plant it once but after spotting a tiny green, it crinkled away.