14. Convolvulus Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 153. 1753; Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 76. 1754.
Bindweed [Latin convolvo, to entwine, alluding to twining habit of most species]
Daniel F. Austin†
Annuals or perennials [shrubs], sometimes rhizomatous. Stems usually decumbent to procumbent, sometimes ascending, erect, or trailing, seldom twining-climbing, glabrous or hairy, hairs not branched, glandular, or stellate. Leaves usually petiolate, rarely sessile; blade deltate-ovate, oblong, oblanceolate, oblong-elliptic, elliptic, linear, ovate, ovate-lanceolate, ovate-deltate, triangular-lanceolate, or deltate, 10–100 mm, surfaces glabrous or hairy. Inflorescences: flowers 2–5+ per peduncle [heads] or solitary; pedicels 10–30 mm; bracts scalelike, lanceolate, lance-linear, elliptic, linear, obovate, ovate, spatulate, or subulate. Flowers: sepals elliptic, oblong, oblong-ovate, obovate, ovate, or suborbiculate, 3–12 mm; corolla usually pink or white, sometimes tinged or striped with blue or pink, center sometimes purplish to reddish, campanulate to ± rotate, (4–)12–30 mm, limb 5-angled to 5-lobed; ovary 2-locular; style 1; stigmas or stigma lobes 2, cylindric, linear, or spatulate, apices acute. Fruits capsular, ± globose, ovoid, or conic-ovoid, dehiscence valvate. Seeds 1–4, trigonous or rounded, glabrous, surfaces granulate, papillulate, smooth, or tuberculate. x = 12.
Species 190 (4 in the flora): North America, Mexico, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Atlantic Islands (Canary Islands), Australia; introduced in Pacific Islands (Hawaii).
Convolvulus althaeoides Linnaeus (collected in California in 1941, 1942, and 1950), C. cneorum Linnaeus, C. sabatius Viviani var. mauritanicus (Bossier) Sa’ad (cultivated as C. mauritanicus Boissier), and C. tricolor Linnaeus are widely cultivated; none of them is known to be established or recurrent in the flora area.
SELECTED REFERENCE Wood, J. R. I. et al. 2015. A foundation monograph of Convolvulus L. (Convolvulaceae). PhytoKeys 51: 1–282.
