Flora of New Zealand Series

cornbind

Annual, climbing, convolvulus-like herb, glabrous or finely puberulent, with slender twining stems and slender taproot. Petiole very slender, to 6 cm long. Lamina (1)-2-9 × (0.5)-1-6 cm, ± ovate-sagittate, entire; base shallowly to deeply cordate; apex acute, cuspidate or acuminate. Ochreae to c. 5 mm long, obliquely truncate, soon lacerate. Fls in terminal or axillary racemes with a slender, puberulent peduncle or in fascicles, often in axils of all but the basal lvs, ± pale green, scentless. Bracts generally = or > pedicels, membranous except for green keel. Pedicels short at anthesis, 1.5-3-(5) mm long at fruiting, articulate above middle, winged in upper part. Perianth 1-3 mm long, broad-ovate to broad-elliptic, moderately accrescent, the 3 outer segments with acute green keel and often white margins. Stamens not enclosed in perianth segments; filaments glabrous. Valves of fr. 4-6 mm long, glabrous or finely puberulent, the outer with prominent greenish white margin. Nut 3-4 mm long, black, finely granular; ribs obtuse.

N.; S.: throughout settled areas but apparently commoner in the south; C.: collected once.

Temperate Eurasia, N. Africa 1872

A common weed of cultivation.

FL Nov-Apr.

Where it is abundant, cornbind is often a nuisance because the vigorous growth tends to smother the crop. In poor soil, especially where germination has been delayed, plants may only grow to a few cm high and produce only 1-2 terminal fls. Another well-known English name is black bindweed, a reference to the remarkably convolvulus-like vegetative parts of F. convolvulus. It has previously been known in N.Z. as Bilderdyckia convolvulus and Polygonum convolvulus.