June 11 Hedge Bindweed On Our Turf

I slowly walked through the prairie at Aldo Leopold Nature Center on this beautiful rainy morning and watched the ways water arranged itself on flowers and leaves. Cup plants were filled to the brim with swimming pools on all stories of their already six foot tall stems. I noticed this small pink flower close to the ground and took a look to see all those water droplets surrounding the white star of this flower. Known as Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium), this short plant with arrow-shaped leaves grows along the ground as a twining vine, usually creeping through low wet places and thickets of brush. The name bindweed comes from its routine behavior of growing around other plants in a death spiral to get places. Its ability to spread roots quickly and produce seeds that remain viable in the soil for up to 30 years has earned this plant the title of noxious weed. This individual likely found its way into the Nature Center forest from a nearby home.