Railroad creeper
Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet
Bìm bìm (Ipomoea cairica), also called railroad creeper or mile-a-minute vine, is a perennial twining vine of the morning-glory family (Convolvulaceae) with hand-like five-lobed leaves and showy lavender funnel flowers; it covers fences and trellises across the tropics and is a common village shade plant in Vietnam.
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Gallery
Railroad creeper — Roadside settingRailroad creeper — Vine
Railroad creeper — Leaves
Railroad creeper — Flower
Railroad creeper — Seeds (dry capsule)
Railroad creeper — Stem with leaves & flowersRailroad creeper — Roadside settingRailroad creeper — VineLife cycle
From seed to productVine
Perennial twining herb clambering over fences and trellises.
Leaves
Hand-like palmately 5-lobed leaves with heart-shaped base.
Flower
Lavender funnel flower with darker tube, opening in the morning.
Fruit & seeds
Capsule containing 4 short-hairy black seeds.
Distribution & origin
Share of recorded occurrences by region- Southeast Asia (incl. Vietnam)30%
- Tropical Africa (origin disputed)20%
- India, Australia & the Pacific20%
- East Asia (China, Taiwan, Japan)15%
- Tropical America15%
Chemical composition
Relative content in agarwood resin- Water80%
- Fibre8%
- Sugars5%
- Protein3%
- Tannins & latex3%
- Alkaloids & glycosides (bioactives)1%
Uses
- Landscape: grown over fences, trellises and banks to prevent erosion; masses of lavender blooms open each morning by verandas and lanes
- Folk medicine: stems and leaves are pounded into poultices for boils and swellings; extracts are studied for anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial activity
- Food: young shoots and leaves are boiled as greens in some regions; only harvested from clean, unsprayed sites
- Ecology: the fast twining vine can smother native bushes; regarded as an invasive weed to manage in some regions
Properties
- Form
- Perennial vine
- Product
- Shade cover, bank cover, folk medicine
- Hallmark
- Hand-like five-lobed leaves; lavender funnel flowers
- Uses
- Landscape, shade, medicine
Habitat & conservation
Bìm bìm prefers open, moist, well-drained sites: fences, roadsides, banks, waste lots, orchards and around houses; it tolerates poor soil and brief drought. Wild or planted throughout the tropics and subtropics — Vietnam, China, Taiwan, India, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Americas and Australia.
Conservation
A widespread, fast-spreading species not under threat — classified as Least Concern (LC). Morning-glory family (Convolvulaceae), genus Ipomoea — the same family as sweet potato and water spinach.
References
- 1Plants of the World Online — Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet — Kew Science, 2026
- 2Ipomoea cairica (railroad creeper) — description, distribution, common names — Wikipedia tiếng Anh, 2026
- 3Bìm bìm (Ipomoea cairica) — Cây cỏ Việt Nam, Phạm Hoàng Hộ — Flora of Vietnam, 2026
- 4五爪金龙 Ipomoea cairica — 形態、分布與用途 — Wikipedia tiếng Trung, 2026
- 5Nguồn ảnh: Yercaud-elango (CC BY-SA 4.0); Juan Carlos Fonseca Mata (CC BY-SA 4.0); Earth100 (CC BY-SA 3.0) — Wikimedia Commons,
- 6Nguồn ảnh: Steve Hurst/ARS (Public domain); Forest and Kim Starr (CC BY 3.0 US) — Wikimedia Commons,