314 CONVOLVULACE.E. [CoTlVolvuluS. 



becomes oppressive exuberance when not tept within bounds by such affiicultural 

 improvements as are yet but very partially to be seen in operation on this side of 

 the Solent. It has gained footing in the more northern States of America, but 

 not as yet to any injurious extent ; I observed it frequently about Boston, where 

 the native plants have mostly given way before intruders from a foreign soil, the 

 land from whence migrated the adventurous dispossessors of her ancient warrior 

 tribes. 



** Bracts foliaceous, enclosing the calyx. Calystegia, Br. 



2. C. sepiuvi, L. Great Bindweed. * Bearhind. Vect. Hedge 

 Lily. " Stem climbing, leaves sagittate, their lobes truncate, 

 peduncles 4-sided single-flowered, bracteas heart-shaped, stigmas 

 short and obtuse." — Br.Fl. E. B. t. 313. Calystegia, Br'.: 

 Br. Fl. p. 371. 



(3. Flowers pale rose or blush-colour. 



y. Corolla deeply 5-cleft almost to the base. 



Everywhere extremely common in moist thickets, hedges and amongst bushes, 

 in osier-beds, damp gardens and shrubberies. M. June — October. Fr. Septem. 

 her? October. If. 



/3. A few plants by the roadside a little before coming to Shanklin from San- 

 down. On wet slipped land amongst bushes above the shore a little to the east- 

 ward of Old Castle Point, in some abundance ; also between Dean farm and 

 Whitwell, in a willow-plot ; and near Eoude. With leaves a little fleshy, by the 

 shore to the N. of Shanklin chine. At Lower Knighton, E. Vernon, Esq. Near 

 Newchurch, Dr. Bell-Sailer .'.'.' On the sea-shore at the North-western extre- 

 mity of the Priory grounds, idem. In a large vfillow-bed between Compton and 

 Duusbury fanns, a little N.E. of Compton grange, in c(msiderable plenty. East 

 bank of the Yar, along the edge of Beckett's copse. 



y. A single plant in the hedge by the gardener's cottage at St. John's. Smith 

 in E. B. mentions a similar var. of C. arvensis, noticed by Ray and by himself at 

 Norwich. 



Moot long, white, slender, fleshy and cylindrical, branched and creeping hori- 

 zontally to a great extent, throwing out occasional bundles of thready fibres and 

 fresh slems. Stems climbing and twining over hedges, &c., to the length of many 

 feet, slightly branched, a little dowi.y and angular and partly twisted, green or 

 reddish, milky. Leaves alternate, bright green, petiolate. Capsule pale brown, 

 tipped with the hard and pointed remnant of the style, roundish, obscurely 3- or 

 4-augled, with as many indistinct lobes, 1-celled, equally divided its entire depth 

 by an imperfect dissepiment not closing up the centre. Seeds either 3 or 4, 

 blackish brown, large and angular, smooth, placed round a short central recep- 

 tacle at the bottom of the capsule. 



Both Smith and Wahlenberg profess never to have seen the capsules, which 

 indeed are not very commonly produced. I have however met with them abun- 

 dantly in Whitefield wood, as also about Hastings, and at Hampstead, near 

 London. 



This common and conspicuous ornament of our hedges may vie with many 

 exotic species in the amplitude and graceful structure of its fine white flowers, 

 which continue to adorn the rural districts, and even the out.skirts of our towns, 

 almost to the end of autumn. Though occasionally straying into the damp corn- 

 field, its trespasses are too insignificant to attract the notice or incur the proscrip- 

 tion of the agriculturist ; it is however apt to prove a troublesome inmate of moist 



* The leaves of the Greater and Lesser Bindweed aff'ord nourishment, in its 

 larva slate, to the Convolvulus hawk-moth {Sphinx Convolvuli, L.), the imago of 

 which fine insect occurred in unusual numbers over a great part of England in 

 the autumn of 1846, when many specimens were captured at Ryde, Ventnor, 

 Brixton, Niton and elsewhere in this island. 



