The seeds of some other plants which we shall see have something of the
same kind.
There is another climbing plant in the hedge, the Large Bindweed or
Convolvulus. To look at it, however, we will go round into the garden
where there is more of it than Mrs. Hammond cares to see. It is
certainly a beautiful plant, with its large three-sided pointed leaves,
and its great pure white bell-shaped flowers--something like the mouth
of a trumpet.
In the farmhouse garden, however, it is certainly a weed--a plant in the
wrong place. We see that at once. Close to the hedge are some gooseberry
and currant bushes, and into these the Bindweed has climbed. The
Bindweed's stems are twined round the stems and branches of the bushes
till they are almost hidden by it, and are bent down by the weight.
[Illustration: LARGE BINDWEED.]
The Bindweed climbs, as we see, by twisting its stem round the tree to
which it clings; but though it is a climbing plant its stems can grow
for a foot or more from the ground without support. Some of the shoots
of the Bindweed are two or three feet away from the stems of the fruit
bushes, but they have grown unsupported till they could reach an
overhanging bough and cling to that.
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