Also called Wild Morning Glory. Hedge Bindweeds do indeed love hedges, but they really come into their own on a chain-link fence. Most often the flowers are white, but sometimes we see a glorious bicolor like this one, which in size and color rivals the cultivated Morning Glory. This plant wove itself through a chain-link fence in Beechview, where it was blooming in late June.
Gray makes Calystegia a division of the genus Convolvulus. He describes the genus, division, and species:
CONVOLVULUS [Tourn.] L. BINDWEED
Corolla funnel-form to campanulate. Stamens included. Capsule globose, 2-celled, or imperfectly 4-celled by spurious partitions between the 2 seeds, or by abortion 1-celled, mostly 2-4-valved. Herbs or somewhat shrubby plants, twining, erect, or prostrate. (Name from convolvere, to entwine.)
CALYSTEGIA (R. Br.) Gray. Stigmas oval to oblong; calyx inclosed in
2 broad leafy bracts.
C. sepium L. (HEDGE B.) Glabrous or essentially so; stem high-twining or sometimes trailing extensively; leaves triangular-halberd-shaped, acute or pointed, the basal lobes obliquely truncate and often somewhat toothed or sinuate-lobed or merely rounded ; peduncles chiefly elongated, 4-angled; bracts rounded to sharp-acuminate at tip ; corolla white or rose-color, 3-5 cm. long. (Including var. americanus Sims.) Moist alluvial soil or along streams. June-Sept. (Eurasia.)
