THE LARGER BINDWEED 135 



becomes a mere nuisance. As the roots creep 

 very extensively they render the plant, where 

 once established, difficult to eradicate. 1 These 

 roots contain very strong medical properties, but 

 the results obtained by their use in rustic medicine 

 are far too violent and uncertain to make it at all 

 advisable to have anything to do with them. 



Botanically the bindweed is the Calystegia sepium. 

 The generic name, Greek in its origin, refers 

 to the quaint enwrapping of the calyx, and its 

 appropriateness will be recognised when we note 

 how the five sepals are almost entirely hidden 

 from sight by the two large heart-shaped bracts 

 that enclose them. Hence one of the old names 

 of the plant is the hooded bindweed. The specific 

 name refers to the habitat the hedges. Other 

 old popular names are the bell-bind, withy-bind, 

 hedge-bell, and campanelle. In one part of our 

 garden we have the bindweed and the hop en- 

 twining together, and one may there readily note 

 the difference of direction in the embracing stems, 

 the former always twining upwards from left to right, 



1 Maplet, writing in 1567, declines to see any good at all 

 in the plant. He declares that " Bindeweede, of some 

 Withweede, is an herb verie noysome and hurtfull to the 

 other fruits of the Gardaine. It hindreth their growth and 

 troubleth them with the inwrapping and circumplication 

 about ye other their stem or stalk." Another old writer 

 equally emphatically denounces it as " an vnprofitable weed, 

 and hurtfull vnto each thing that groweth next vnto it." 



