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BELLBIND LADY'S NIGHTCAP
(Convolvulus sepium; Calystegia sepium of Gray) Morning-glory
family
Flowers - Light pink, with white stripes or all white,
bell-shaped, about 2 in. long, twisted in the bud, solitary, on
long peduncles from leaf axils. Calyx of 5 sepals, concealed by 2
large bracts at base. Corolla 5-lobed, the 5 included stamens
inserted on its tube; style with 2 oblong stigmas. Stem: Smooth
or hairy, 3 to 10 ft. long, twining or trailing over ground.
Leaves: Triangular or arrow-shaped, 2 to 5 in. long, on slender
petioles.
Preferred Habitat - Wayside hedges, thickets, fields, walls.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to North Carolina, westward to
Nebraska. Europe and Asia.
No one need be told that the pretty, bell-shaped pink and white
flower on the vigorous vine clambering over stone walls and
winding about the shrubbery of wayside thickets in a suffocating
embrace is akin to the morning-glory of the garden trellis (C.
major). An exceedingly rapid climber, the twining stem often
describes a complete circle in two hours, turning against the
sun, or just contrary to the hands of a watch. Late in the
season, when an abundance of seed has been set, the flower can
well afford to keep open longer hours, also in rainy weather; but
early in the summer, at least, it must attend to business only
while the sun shines and its benefactors are flying. Usually it
closes at sundown. On moonlight nights, however, the hospitable
blossom keeps open for the benefit of certain moths. In Europe
the plant's range is supposed to be limited to that of a
crepuscular moth (Sphinx convolvuli), and where that benefactor
is rare, as in England, the bindweed sets few seeds where it does
not occur, as in Scotland, this convolvulus is seldom found wild;
whereas in Italy Delpino tells of catching numbers of the moths
in hedges overgrown with the common plant, by standing with thumb
and forefinger over a flower, ready to close it when the insect
has entered. We know that every floral clock is regulated by the
hours of flight of its insect friends. When they have retired,
the flowers close to protect nectar and pollen from useless
pilferers. In this country various species of bees chiefly
fertilize the bindweed blossoms. Guided by the white streaks, or
pathfinders, they crawl into the deep tube and sip through one of
the five narrow passages leading to the nectary. A transverse
section of the flower cut to show these five passages standing in
a circle around the central ovary looks like the end of a
five-barreled revolver. Insects without a suitably long proboscis
are, of course, excluded by this arrangement.
>From July until hard frost look for that exquisite little beetle,
Cassida aurichalcea, like a drop of molten gold, clinging beneath
the bindweed's leaves. The small perforations reveal his hiding
places. "But you must be quick if you would capture him," says
William Hamilton Gibson, "for he is off in a spangling streak of
glitter. Nor is this golden sheen all the resource of the little
insect; for in the space of a few seconds, as you hold him in
your hand, he has become a milky, iridescent opal, and now
mother-of-pearl, and finally crawls before you in a coat of dull
orange." A dead beetle loses all this wonderful luster. Even on
the morning-glory in our gardens we may sometimes find these
jeweled mites, or their fork-tailed, black larvae, or the tiny
chrysalids suspended by their tails, although it is the wild
bindweed that is ever their favorite abiding place.
The small FIELD BINDWEED (C. arvensis), a common immigrant from
Europe, which has taken up its abode from Nova Scotia and Ontario
southward to New Jersey, and westward to Kansas, trails over the
ground with a deathless persistency which fills farmers with
dismay. It is like a small edition of the hedge bind weed, only
its calyx lacks the leaf-like bracts at its base, its slender
stem rarely exceeds two feet in length, and the little pink and
white flowers often grow in pairs. Their habit of closing both in
the evening and in rainy weather indicates that they are adapted
for diurnal insects only; but if the bell hang down, or if the
corolla drop off, the pollen must fall on the stigma and effect
self-fertilization. Many more insects visit this flower than the
large bindweed, attracted by the peculiar fragrance, and led by
the white streaks to the orange-colored under surface of the
ovary, where the nectar lies concealed. Stigmas and anthers
mature at the same time; but as the former are slightly the
longer, they receive pollen brought from another flower before
the visitor gets freshly dusted.
Next: GROUND OR MOSS PINK
Previous: SPREADING DOGBANE FLYTRAP DOGBANE HONEYBLOOM BITTERROOT
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