Field Bindweed
Scientific Name: Convolvulus arvensis L.
Other Names: liseron des champs, European bindweed, Small-flowered morning-glory, Wild morning-glory, liseron
Family: Morning-Glory Family (Convolvulaceae)
General Description: Perennial, reproducing by seed and by an extensively spreading and very persistent, whitish underground root system.
Habitat: Field bindweed occurs throughout Ontario in cultivated fields, gardens, lawns, roadsides, and waste places.
Seedlings
- Seedling with stem
- Leaves alternate
- Prominent veins present on undersurface of leaves
Stems
- Slender
- Smooth or pubescent or very finely hairy
- Usually twining or curling
- Prostrate or climbing on any nearby object
Leaves
- Alternate (1 per node)
- Short or long stalks
- Very variable in form but commonly arrowhead-shaped with 2 basal lobes and smooth margins
- Sometimes long and narrow, or broader or nearly round except for the 2 basal lobes
Flowers
- On long stalks from axils of leaves
- Always with a pair of small, narrow, green bracts on the flower stalk some distance below the flower
- 5 small green sepals and a white to pinkish funnel-shaped corolla 2- 2.5 cm (4/5- 1 in.) in diameter when fully opened
- Seedpods roundish, about 5 mm (1/5 in.) long containing 1 to 4 seeds:
- Each about 3 mm (1/8 in.) long
- Pear-shaped
- 3-angled
- 1 side rounded and with tiny greyish bumps
- Each about 3 mm (1/8 in.) long
- Flowers from mid-June until autumn
Often Confused With
Wild Buckwheat (Distinguished by being perennial with extensively creeping, white, cord-like fleshy roots which produce new shoots and form dense patches; by its white or pinkish funnel-shaped flowers with long stalks and the absence of ocrea)
Hedge Bindweed (Distinguished by its smaller leaves, flowers usually not over 2.5 cm (1 in.) in diameter, and the 2 small bracts near the middle of the flower stalk, these tiny bracts never enclosing the base of the flower)