Sunday, July 09, 2006

Calystegia sepium



Greater Bindweed is what is pictured to the left.It belongs to the same family as morning glories.It has a nasty habit of choking other plants before blocking out their light and killing them.It has deep roots (5 metres down in 2.5 years) which also spread laterally and root every few metres.If any root is left in the soil a new plant regrows from the fragment.So rototiling would make a population boom!

A few weeks ago i found an attractive plant with pink flowers with white stripe.After todays research i found out it is normal bindweed.From the same family as my hedge growing one.The sunrise serenade is a distant cousin of my Calystegia sepium.

Calystegia means beautiful covering in greek, and sepia is latin for hedge.So quite poetic name when translated.

I looked it up for Clare in Alameda (http://alamedagarden.blogspot.com/), who asked me about the photo.

Its funny how one question can involve 60 genus and over 1650 species.I guess botany is not an exact science when it comes to classifying different plants with similar characteristics.

Its a perennial weed so now how much i take it on it will be back next year.My hillside garden is in the heart of Calystegia country.keep on growing world.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hope the research was not too painful! It sounds like a terror of a plant, but it looks great. I was at a botanical garden in the Oakland/Berkeley area today and saw a plant like it and the woman with us said it was Convolvulus, and remembering the photo from your blog, I asked if it was also called Bindweed. Yes! Isn't it funny how when you see something once, you suddenly start noticing it everywhere?

Unknown said...

Ugh... I have them, too, and I literally do go out every few days and pull the darn things out! My neighbor allows them to grow on the chainlink fence between us. I can't wait to replace said fence with something heftier--but in the meantime I go along the fence when they're not home and cut the plants on her side as much as possible with a long pair of scissors!

David (Snappy) said...

The world always look different claire when you start looking for plants.They are there and you dont know it.I guessed from my own observations that morning glory and bindweed were related from how they grew and the flowers.I have never seen pink/white flowers on bindweed before this year.On my daily walk to and from bus station i noticed it.Clipped a bit, tried growing it unsuccessfully.
The research is all good.I am very good at human biology,pathology etc at work.I am turning my education to plants and flowers..
Blackswamp girl i constantly attack my neighbours weeds with scissors ha ha.To stop from encroaching on my side of the fence.I have learned to live with the bindweed.It is at home so i just let it grow in a few places.With roots that deep i will never get rid of it.With the hillside weed blowing in weeds its part of the natural world here..