Water Spinach (Ipomoea aquatica, Convolvulaceae): A food gone wild

Water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) has been considerednative to Africa, Asia, and the southwestern PacificIslands. The herbs have been a medicinal vegetable insouthern Asia since at least A.D. 300, and perhaps since200 B.C. People still gather plants from the wild and cultivatethem. With European arrival in these regions in thelate 1400s, they became aware of this medicinal food andbegan carrying water spinach around the world. As withother transported plants, Europeans took along somecommon names and cultural uses. With the later migrationof people from Asian countries to other parts of the world,the food was imported into new areas. Doubt persists asto where the species was domesticated. Data from usesas food, regions of cultivation, medicinal use, phylogeneticstudies, common names, and pathogens suggest thatwater spinach was first cultivated in southeastern Asia.The plants may have been domesticated in China and India,but the data are equivocal. The vegetable sometimesescapes from cultivation to become an ecologically invasiveweed.