Convolvulus virgatus Seeds | Twiggy Bindweed

Twiggy Bindweed (Convolvulus virgatus) as a grey-green shrub with small white trumpet flowers — Twiggy Bindweed (*Convolvulus virgatus*): Convolvulaceae, a wiry shrub of dry Middle Eastern slopes with white trumpets.

LATIN NAME: Convolvulus virgatus

COMMON NAME: Twiggy Bindweed

Plant Profile

Twiggy Bindweed is an evergreen shrub of the morning glory family, about a metre tall, with wiry grey-green stems, tiny linear leaves and a long succession of small white trumpet flowers through the warm months. It has none of the sprawling habit of its weedy relatives, and it holds itself upright like a small broom.

It grows on dry, sunny slopes from the eastern Mediterranean into southwestern Asia, on stony ground where water drains away within hours of rain. The grey foliage and the wiry frame are both adaptations to that life: they reduce water loss and reflect the worst of the sun. The flowers are small, perhaps two centimetres across, but they come in such numbers that the bush looks white for weeks.

Science & Biotechnology

Convolvulus is a large genus with a centre of diversity in the Mediterranean, and it includes both twining weeds and compact shrubs like this one. The shrubby species are placed in a separate section, and their woodiness is thought to be a derived trait rather than an ancestral one.

The family is chemically distinctive, with tropane alkaloids and resin glycosides in many genera, and the purgative resin of scammony, from a related bindweed, was a major item of medieval trade. Convolvulus virgatus has been sampled in surveys of the family’s alkaloids but is not a commercial source. Its chromosome count and breeding system have been recorded, and it sets viable seed freely in cultivation, which is why seedlings turn up in gravel.

Uses & Benefits

In the garden it is a plant for a hot, dry bank or a gravel bed, where its long flowering and grey foliage make it useful among sages, cistus and lavender. It is also good in a large pot, where the drainage can be controlled and the plant can be moved under cover for winter.

It has no culinary use and no significant medicinal role; its value is ornamental and ecological, since the flowers are visited by small bees through a season when little else is open on a dry slope.

Growing from Seed

Nick the seed coat and soak it for a day, then sow into a gritty mix at eighteen to twenty-two degrees. Germination is usually two to four weeks, and fresh seed is much more reliable than old.

Grow the seedling in full sun and keep it on the dry side, since damp roots are the main cause of failure. Plant out into sharp drainage in spring, and trim lightly after flowering to keep the bush compact. It is hardy to about minus eight degrees in dry soil. A pane of glass over the crown in winter keeps the worst of the wet off.

Our Take

A bindweed that behaves itself, with grey foliage and a long season of white trumpets. Dry feet and full sun are all it asks. Give it a hot summer and it will flower until October.

Herb Seeds