It forms a fleshy, elongated tuberous rootstock, 30 cm in length, from which leaves grow every spring.

[3] The young stems are angular and initially densely covered with silver white hairs (pilose);[3] these later become hairless.

The leaves on the stems are 2 to 6.5 cm long and borne on 4 cm-long petioles; they are entire or subpalmately or pinnately 3-7 lobed and covered in silver-white hair.

[4] Johannes Gottfried Hallier subsequently classified the species as belonging to the genus Ipomoea in 1894.

[1] The distribution of Ipomoea oenotherae has been described as ranging "from Ethiopia and Somalia southwards to Namibia, Botswana and the Northern Province, North-West and Gauteng in South Africa".

It also grows in grassland, and is found both by the side of the road and on cultivated ground (often on sandy or rocky soils).