The Bindweed Family
What are they?
This family includes the bindweeds and morning-glories, herbaceous climbing plants with usually colorful and showy, trumpet-shaped flowers. The family includes a number of familiar garden plants, as well as some crop plants such as Sweet-potato.
Where are they found?
Most species can be found in sunny fields and other open, grassy places as well as hegelines and coastal dunes. Some prefer wetter ground.
Identification
Species found around Cape May are readily identified by a combination of leaf shape and flower color.
Small Red Morning-glory Ipomoea coccinea
Native to the Neotropics. Generally not common but can be locally plentiful, such as at Higbee's Beach WMA. Favors weedy fields and old hedgelines. Flowers July to October. Despite the name, the flowers are often a rich orange.
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Ivy-leaved Morning-glory Ipomoea hederacea
Native to the Neotropics but becoming established in weedy fields, old hedgelines and waste places. Flowers July to September. Leaves covered in downy hairs.
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Small White Morning-glory Ipomoea lacunosa
Possibly native but currently known only from an area of disturbed grassland south of the Cape May canal. Flowers July to October. A species with small flowers and rather angular, three-lobed leaves.
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Wild Potato-vine Ipomoea pandurata
Native but rather local in sunny places along field edges, roadsides and other open areas. Flowers July to October. Leaves variable but generally roughly three-lobed.
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Common Morning-glory Ipomoea purpurea
Native to Tropical America. Widely grown as a garden plant and occasionally found as an escape from cultivation or where garden waste has been dumped. Flowers July to October. There are many cultivated clones of this popular plant and, though the wild plant has purple flowers, plants may occur with flowers that are any shade of purple, blue, red, pink or white, or even striped combinations of these colors.
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Hedge Bindweed Calystegia sepium
A common plant, usually favoring wetter locations such as the edges of reedbeds and other swampy locations. Flowers June to September. Flowers may be striped or all white, though Cape May plants all appear to be of the pink-striped form.
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Field Bindweed Convolvulus arvensis
Introduced from Europe. A weed of cultivated fields and waste ground which has the potential to be a problematic weed, but in Cape May it so far appears to be localized in just one or two places. Flowers June to September. Flowers may be pink-striped or all white and are much smaller than those of Hedge Bindweed.
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