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Fallopia convolvulus
Also called Wild Buckwheat, Climbing Buckwheat, Cornbind, Eurasian Black Bindweed, Corn Bindweed, Black Knot, Climbing Knotweed
Fallopia convolvulus, the black-bindweed or wild buckwheat, is a fast-growing annual flowering plant in the family Polygonaceae native throughout Europe, Asia and northern Africa.
Other old folk names include bear-bind, bind-corn, climbing bindweed, climbing buckwheat, corn-bind, corn bindweed, devil's tether, and wild buckwheat.
The seeds are edible, and were used in the past as a food crop, with remains found in Bronze Age middens. The seeds are too small and low-yielding to make a commercial crop, and it is now more widely considered a weed, occurring in crops, waste areas and roadsides. It can be a damaging weed when it is growing in a garden or crop, as it can not only damage the plants around which it twines, but also clog the machinery used to harvest a given crop. It is also an invasive species in North America.
Fallopia convolvulus grows most commonly on disturbed or cultivated land, in northern Europe typically on warm, sunny, well-drained sandy or limestone soil types, but in hotter, drier areas like Pakistan, on moist shady sites. It ranges from sea level in the north of its range, up to 3,600 m (11,800 ft) altitude in the south in the Himalaya.
Russian Vine · Russian Vine · Copse-bindweed · Climbing False Buckwheat · False Buckwheat · False Buckwheat
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Fallopia convolvulus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
