Hedge Bindweed

Media
Photo of hedge bindweed flowers
Scientific Name
Calystegia sepium (also Convolvulus sepium)
Family
Convolvulaceae (morning glories)
Description

A creeping and climbing perennial vine, spreading by deep roots, very difficult to eradicate. Flowers on long peduncles from leaf axils, large, funnel-shaped, to 2½ inches long, white or sometimes pink with a few white stripes on the inside. Each flower subtended by small, oblong bracts. Bindweed flowers close by noon on sunny days. Blooms May–September. Leaves arrow-shaped with 2 squarish lobes, to 4 inches long.

Size
Stems can reach lengths of 10 feet.
Where To Find
image of Hedge Bindweed distribution map
Statewide.
Borders of bottomland and rich forests, banks of streams and rivers, margins of ponds, lakes and sloughs, disturbed parts of upland prairies, fallow fields, crop fields, pastures, fencerows, gardens, railroads, roadsides, and open, disturbed areas.
This plant and its close relatives in the genus Calystegia can become noxious weeds in crop fields and other disturbed sites, but their smaller root systems make them less significant as weeds than field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), which is among the world's worst agricultural weeds.
The flowers provide nectar for insects, and some beetles, and the larvae of plume moths, eat the foliage.
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About Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants in Missouri
A very simple way of thinking about the green world is to divide the vascular plants into two groups: woody and nonwoody (or herbaceous). But this is an artificial division; many plant families include some species that are woody and some that are not. The diversity of nonwoody vascular plants is staggering! Think of all the ferns, grasses, sedges, lilies, peas, sunflowers, nightshades, milkweeds, mustards, mints, and mallows — weeds and wildflowers — and many more!