Convolvulus glomeratus - Clustered Bindweed

Clustered Bindweed is a biennial or perennial herbs, 1-2 ft, creeping with a diffuse or twining habit. Stems are appressed velvet-hairy. Leaves are somewhat stalked,velvet-hairy, 1.8-2.8 cm long, 4-8 mm wide, rarely larger, ovate or lanceshaped-oblong to lanceshaped, tip pointed, lower leaves narrowed, upper eared. Flowers are borne in heads of 4-10, in leaf-axils. Flower-cluster-stalks are 1-4 cm long, velvet-hairy. Bracts are about 1.2 cm long, ovate, tapering. Sepals are unequal, densely silky-woolly, outer sepals 8-11 x 3.5-4.5 mm, elliptic-ovate, long tapering, inner sepals 6.5-10 x 2 mm long, lanceshaped, tapering. Flowers are white to light purple, 8-12 mm long, hairy on the folds outside, the tube hairless. Filaments are unequal. Ovary is hairless, on a cup-shaped disc, style hairless, about 4 mm long, stigma short, cylindrical. Capsules are ovoid, 5 x 4 mm, hairless. Seeds 2-4, dark brown, indistinctly tuberculate. Clustered Bindweed is found in N.E. Africa, (N. Sudan, Egypt), Arabia, Iran, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan. The plant is used as fodder for goats and camels, also used as a purgative. Flowering: December-August.