262 CONVOLVULUS. [class v. order I 



Corolla bell-sLaped, about an inch broad at the mouth, mostly a deli- 

 cate pink or rose colour, with white rays from the yellowish centre, 

 having five plaits, and five indistinct lobes. Stamens from the base of 

 the corolla, dilated below, slender, about half as long as the corolla, 

 two mostly shorter than the others. Anthers arrow-shaped. Style as 

 long as the stamens. Stigmas two, oblong, spreading, downy. The 

 capsules are seldom perfected ; it propagates itself by the underground 

 stems. 



Habitat. — Corn fields, hedges, and gardens ; very common, espe- 

 cially in a light soil. 



Perennial ; flowering from July to August. 



This is a very troublesome plant to the farmer, though greatly orna- 

 mental to his fields. The flowers are beautiful in colour, and deli- 

 cately formed, exhaling a fragcant odour in dry warm weather, and 

 closing closely up in rain, or when the sky is cloudy. It contains a 

 cathartic resin, but in a far less proportion and much less active than 

 the well known Scammony or Jalop, as well as other plants belonging 

 to this order. 



The leaves are very variable in size, and their having acute, obtuse, or 

 elongated lobes at the base, being smooth or downy, together with the 

 variable depth of colour in the flowers, seem to depend upon the 

 situation of its growth, or rather the nature of the soil, as to the lightness 

 or richness of its quality. 



** Flowers with tivo large bracteas at the base. Calystegia. — R. Brown. 



2. C. se'pium, Linn. {Y'lg.^A'i.) great Bindiveed. Stem climbing; 

 leaves arrow-shaped, their lobes truncate, often toothed peduncles, 

 single flowered, four sided ; bracteas large, heart-shaped, close beneath 

 the calyx. 



English Botany, t. 313. — English Flora, vol. i. p. 286. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 113. — Calystegia sepinin. — Lindley, Synopsis, 

 p. 167. 



Root with long creeping somewhat fleshy underground racemes. 

 Stem slender, angular, twisted, smooth, woody, much branched, 

 climbing and spreading, many feet around. Leaves large, arrow- 

 shaped, alternate, acute at the apex, lobes at the base abruptly cut, 

 or obtusely toothed, or even as the rest of the margin generally is, 

 quite smooth, a lively green, paler and somewhat glaucous beneath, 

 with a mid-rib, and numerous smaller lateral branched veins, on a 

 slender furrowed footstalk, which frequently twists around other plants 

 to assist in supporting itself. Flowers large, solitary, from the axis 

 of the leaves, very handsome, pure white, or with a pale pink ray, 

 about two inches across the mouth, on a rather slender square smooth 

 stalk, scarcely as long as the leaves, having two large dilated oblong 

 heart-shaped veiny bracteas immediately beneath, and cuclosing the 



