White Bindweed, Large Bindweed, Hedge Bindweed
Calystegia sepium

Family: Convolvulaceae

What it is like

A slender climber. It keeps growing from year to year. It grows 1-4 m high. It has both underground stems or rhizomes and runners or stolons. It climbs over supports. The stems are smooth and twining. They twine in an anticlockwise direction. The leaves are 5-15 cm long and 2-4 cm wide. They are oval or triangle shaped or like an arrowhead. They are light green. The leaf stalks are almost free of hairs. The flowers are 5-8 cm long and about 4 cm across. They are white or pink and funnel shaped. They occur singly in the axils of leaves. They are on long stalks. The flowers open during the day and close at night. The fruit is a capsule about 1 cm across.

There are 25 Calystegia species.

Where it is found

It is a temperate plant. It grows in shady gullies and along streams. It grows in coastal salt-marshes and reed swamps. Tasmania Herbarium. In Yunnan.

Countries/locations it is found in

Argentina, Asia, Australia (country/location of origin), Britain, Central Asia, Chile, China, Easter Island, Europe, France, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mediterranean, Mongolia, Portugal, Russia, Sicily, Slovenia, South America, Spain, Tajikistan, Tasmania (country/location of origin), Turkey, Türkiye

How it is used for food

The root is washed and steamed, or sun-dried, then broken into fragments. It is cooked and eaten with rice or ground into a meal and steamed in the form of cakes. The young shoots are eaten.

It is cultivated.

Edible parts

Leaves, root, stalks, flowers, caution

How it is grown

It can be grown by seed or stem cuttings.

Its other names

Local names

Bellvine, Greater Bindweed, Navadni plotni slak

Synonyms

Calystegia dahurica (Herbert) G. Don; Calystegia sepium (Linnaeus) R. Brown var. integrifolia Liou & Ling; Convolvulus dahuricus Herbert Convolvulus sepium L.;