Moonflower Time-Lapse – In A Colorado Minute (Week 340)

The Moonflower (Ipomoea alba) or Moonvine, is often considered a night-blooming Morning Glory since it belongs to the Morning Glory family (Convolvulaceae).

The colorful Morning Glory usually blooms with first light and wilts by the afternoon. On the other hand, the Moonflower usually opens its blooms rather rapidly in the afternoon and blooms throughout the night – providing lovely white highlights in the dark night. I’m emphasizing the “usually” because here in the Colorado autumn, both Morning Glory and Moonflower mostly open their blooms in the afternoon and bloom for a full 24 to 48 hours.

The first time, I got Moonflowers to bloom in my yard (years ago in Brooklyn), I was actually startled and then delighted by how quickly the bloom opens. It looks like a time-lapse in real time. I’ve always wanted to capture this on video. Now that I finally got some to bloom again, they’re not behaving in Colorado as I know from other regions. So instead, I shot this 1-minute Moonflower time-lapse video over the course of about 3 hours! The slight wind was a bit unfortunate.

As you watch the video, you may also notice a Morning Glory and a second Moonflower opening, yesterday’s Morning Glory getting its purple stripes and yesterday’s Moonflower wilting… and one busy bee!

The featured song is the instrumental version of “Branches” by Josh Woodward (JoshWoodward.com). This song is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 US License. Thank you so much, Josh!

moonflower_min-340-moonflower_01_full-bloom_s

I’ll be posting a few photos of the flowers throughout this week to the In A Colorado Minute 2016 Flickr album, on Google+ and Facebook.

Save

Save

Submit your comment

Please enter your name

Your name is required

Please enter a valid email address

An email address is required

Please enter your message

Moving Postcard © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Designed by Luci Westphal

Produced by GHWP