Plant Name
Scientific Name: Convolvulus arvensis
Synonyms: Convolvulus ambigens, C. incanus, Strophocaulos arvensis
Common Names: Field Bindweed, European Bindweed, Creeping Jenny, Perennial Morningglory, Smallflowered Morning Glory
Plant Characteristics
Duration: Perennial
Growth Habit: Vine, Herb/Forb
Arizona Native Status: Introduced. This naturalized weed is native to Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Habitat: Desert, Upland, Mountain, Riparian. This plant grows in disturbed areas, along roadsides, and in cultivated fields and orchards.
Flower Color: White, Pink
Flowering Season: Spring, Summer, Early fall
Height: Up to 3 feet (1 m) tall or long
Description: The flowers emerge from the leaf axils. The individual flowers are broadly funnel-shaped, circular (indistinctly 5-lobed), pleated, up to 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide, and banded with reddish or purplish on the outside. The flowers are followed by small, brown, papery, hairless, 4-valved, round to egg-shaped seed capsules. The variable leaves have smooth to undulating margins and are dark green, hairy or hairless, alternate, and oblong, elliptic, narrowly triangular, narrowly heart-shaped, egg-shaped, or arrowhead-shaped. The stems are slender, green, hairless or sparsely hairy, and prostrate to twining.
This plant reproduces by seed and also spreads by creeping horizontal rhizomes. It is a difficult to control weed because the seeds can remain viable for decades, it can regrow from any roots left in the soil, and the roots may be up to 20 feet (6 m) deep.
The similar Hedge False Bindweed (Calystegia sepium) has leafy bracts at the base of the flowers and is not found in this part of Arizona. Texas Bindweed (Convolvulus equitans) has usually toothed or lobed leaves and more distinctly 5-lobed flowers with often a reddish pink center.
Special Characteristics
Legal Status – Arizona State-listed Noxious Weed (Prohibited Noxious Weed, Regulated Noxious Weed)
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Asteridae
Order: Solanales
Family: Convolvulaceae – Morning-glory family
Genus: Convolvulus L. – bindweed
Species: Convolvulus arvensis L. – field bindweed
More About This Plant