Bindweed (redirected from hedge bindweed)

bindweed: see morning glory.

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bindweed

Any plant of the closely related genera Convolvulus and Calystegia, mostly twining, often weedy, and producing funnel-shaped flowers. Bellbine, or greater bindweed (Calystegia sepium), native in Eurasia and North America, is a twining perennial that grows from creeping, underground stems and is common in hedges and woods and along roadsides. Sea bindweed (C. soldanella) creeps along European seaside sand and gravel. Several Convolvulus species are widespread or conspicuous. The weedy perennial field bindweed (C. arvensis), European but widely naturalized in North America, twines around crop plants and along roadsides. Scammony, a purgative, is derived from the rhizomes of C. scammonia, a trailing perennial native to western Asia. Rosewood oil comes from certain species of Convolvulus.

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bindweed

1. any convolvulaceous plant of the genera Convolvulus and Calystegia that twines around a support

2. any of various other trailing or twining plants, such as black bindweed

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Bindweed 

(1) A genus of plants(Convolvulus) of the family Convolvulaceae. The plants can be twining or nontwining herbs and shrubs. There are approximately 250 species, distributed mainly in the temperate regions. In the USSR there are 30 species. The most common is the lesser bindweed,(C. arvensis), a persistent perennial soboliferous weed with pale-rose slightly aromatic flowers. The plant grows on cultivated and fallow land, along dams, in ravines, and in other similar habitats. As green fodder bindweed is poisonous in large quantities, but it is harmless in hay. The desert species, C. divaricatus and C. erinaceus, are valuable feed plants. The species C. subhirsutus grows in the forest foothills of Middle Asia. A highly toxic plant of the Crimea, Asia Minor, and the Near East is C. scammonia.

(2) Often the name bindweed includes several species with twining stems of the genus Calystegia, which is also in the family Convolvulaceae.

(3) Sometimes bindweed refers to the South American Ipomoea of the family Convolvulaceae, as well as to the black bindweed (Polygonum convolvulus) of the family Polygonaceae. The black bindweed is a twining annual weed with small plain greenish flowers.

T. V. EGOROVA