PLANTS | ANIMALS | ECOLOGY | FUNGI | GEOLOGY | GARDENING | TOOLS
Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
from the the August 16, 2009 Newsletter, reporting on a visit to Lost Creek Lake in Jackson County, southwestern Oregon:
BINDWEED
Above you see another weedy, white-flower herb, this one viny, spreading prettily across often-flooded ground next to the lake. That's Bindweed, CONVOLVULUS ARVENSIS, in the Morning Glory family. Its inch-long, funnel-shaped blossoms and arrowhead-shaped leaves are shown below.
This invasive weed from Europe also invaded our tobacco patch back in Kentucky but it wasn't as innocent as Carpetweeds, for it would twine up tobacco stalks. If you just pulled on it, it would tear the precious tobacco leaves, so you had to bend over and unwind it. Except in the far North, you see Bindweed all across North America along sidewalks, in abandoned lots, roadsides, weedy fields -- just about any weedy spot. One reason it survives so well is that it's a perennial from a deep, persistent root.
Despite being such an aggressive, common plant it has a very pretty, elegant little blossom, as you can see below:
.
Sometimes Bindweed flowers are pink-tinged.