Ipomoea imperati is a perennial vine. The stems are trailing and root at the nodes. They are herbaceous to fleshy and can extend up to 4 meters or more. The stems are glabrous. The leaves are simple, alternate, and vary greatly in shape, typically linear, lanceolate, ovate, or oblong, ranging from 1.5 to 4(–6) cm in length, with size varying significantly depending on the habitat. The apex of the leaves is rounded to obtuse, sometimes emarginate or occasionally bilobed, while the base is obtuse, truncate, or cordate. The leaf surfaces are glabrous and fleshy, with margins that can be entire, undulate, or 5–7-lobed, often exhibiting different forms on the same plant. The leaves are petiolate, and stipules are absent. The flowers are usually solitary and found in the leaf axils, with pedicels ranging from 8 to 15 mm long. The pedicels can be long or short, with scale-like bracts to foliose. The flowers are bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic (radially symmetric), and 5-merous. The calyx consists of 5 distinct, imbricate sepals, which are subcoriaceous and oblong. The inner three sepals measure 10–15 mm long, while the outer two are shorter. The sepals are glabrous, with an apex that is acute to obtuse, mucronulate, and occasionally somewhat enlarging in fruit but not markedly accrescent, remaining persistent. The corolla comprises 5 fused petals, with a white limb and a yellow or basally purple throat, forming a funnelform structure that is 3.5–5 cm long. There are five distinct stamens, usually included or rarely exserted, with filaments inserted on the corolla tube base, alternating with the corolla lobes. The anthers are dithecal, usually linear or oblong, and extrorse. The ovary is superior, 2–4-carpellate, usually with as many cells, with basal or basal-axile placentation. The number of ovules is 2(4, 6) per cell; the ovary may be 1-celled with four ovules. The style is filiform, simple, bifid, or sometimes with two distinct styles, and the stigma is globose or 2–3-lobed with globose lobes. The fruit is a brown capsule, globose to ovoid, measuring 0.8–1.2 cm long, and dehiscent by 4 valves or rarely 6 valves, or it may split irregularly. The seeds are 1–4 per fruit, pale brown, 8–9 mm long, short–tomentose, and have longer woolly hairs on the margins. The endosperm is either absent or scanty, and the cotyledons are usually foliaceous. It is found on beaches and dunes around 0–20 meters.