DINDWEED FAMILY 345 



Ord. LIII. CoN\'OLvrLACE.t. — The Bindweed .F;jni.v 



An extensive and highly vakiable family of plants, most of 

 which are herbaceous climbers, with large and very beautiful 

 flowers. They are most abundant within the Tropics. They have 

 frequently a milky juice : their leaves are scattered and exstipulate; 

 their ^sepals 5, inferior, imbricate, often very unequal, persistent; 

 their corolla monosymmetric, hypogynous, plaited, gamopetalous, 

 5-toothed, deciduous ; itamens 5, inserted on the base of the 

 corolla-tube; ovary of 2 — 4 united carpels, few-seeded, surrounded 

 below by a fleshy, ring-shaped disk; style single, 2 — 4-forked ; 

 p'liit a r — 4-chambered capsule. As medicines they occupy an 

 important station. The roots o[ Convolvulus Scaminonia, a Syrian 

 species, furnish scammony ; jalap is prepared from a similar 

 gum-fesin which abounds in the roots of ^veral species of 

 Exogonium, beautiful Mexican climbers, with large, trumpet-shaped 

 flowers ; and Batatas edidis is no less valuable as a food in tropical 

 countries, its roots, known as sweet potatoes, abounding in starch 

 and sugar, and being very nourishing. Cusciila (Dodder) is a 

 parasitic genus with branched, climbing, thread-like stems, no 

 leaves, and globular heads of small, wax-like flov,'ers. The seeds 

 germinate in the ground, and the young plants climb the stems 

 of adjoining plants, sending out root-like suckers into them and 

 then losing their connexion with the ground. One species found 

 in Britain grows upon Flax, with the seeds of which it has 

 probably been introduced; and others grow on Furzes, Heaths, 

 Clovers and other plants. 



r. Convolvulus. — Leafy, twining plants. 



2. Ct:scuTA. — Leafless, twining parasites. 



I. Convolvulus (Bindweed). — Slender, twining plants, witn 

 milky juice ; scattered leaves, often sagittate ; corolla trumpet- 

 shaped, 5-plaited, slightly 5-lobed; capside a-qhambered below, 

 i-chambered above, 2-valved. (Xame, a dipiinutive from the 

 Latin convolvo, I entwine.) 



I. C. septum (Great Bindweed).— A glabrous, twining plant 

 with stout, fleshv, creeping rhizouie ; leaves arrow-shaped, with 

 abrupt lobes ; bracts large, heart-shaped, close to the flower and 

 entirely enclosing it when in bud , flowers solitary, on square 

 peduncles, large, pure white ; jruit not often perfected. — Bushy 

 nlaces ; common. A most mischievous weed in gardens, not only 

 exhausting the soil with its roots, but strangling with its twining 

 stems the plants which grow near. Its handsome flowers are 



