Wildflowers of Ainsworth: Hedge Bindweed

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"Oh, what a pretty morning glory!" said I when I first noticed this stuff in my privet hedge, and I let it grow all over. Only recently did I learn it was actually hedge bindweed.

I'm not the first to confuse it — one of its common names is wild morning glory.

It has arrow-shaped leaves with the two bases (opposite the point) squared off.



Other common names for this vine include old man's nightcap, devil's vine, hedge lily, and woodbine. — so that's woodbine, is it? Long ago when I learned a song (actually a Robert Burns poem set to music) whose second verse began:

Oft hae I roved by bonnie Doon
To see the rose and woodbine twine…

I didn't trouble myself to learn what woodbine actually was. I figured it only grew in Scotland anyway. I was wrong about that, too.

In The Secrets of Wildflowers, Jack Sanders includes this interesting tidbit:

Hedge bindweed turns its tip counterclockwise and away from the direction of the sun as it searches for a foothold, and winds that way once something is found. A botanist once discovered that if the plant is turned in another direction, it will die unless it can disengage itself and rewind in its natural, counterclockwise direction.

I suppose I had better go try to pull it out of my hedge, as my "pretty morning glory," left alone, may eventually smother the hedge. But I'm not terribly fond of that hedge anyway.