Convolvulus arvensis, the field bindweed, is a species of bindweed that is rhizomatous and is in the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae), native to Europe and Asia. It is a climbing or creeping herbaceous perennial plant with stems growing to 0.5–2 metres in length, usually found at ground level, with small, white and pink flowers. Other common names, mostly obsolete, include lesser bindweed, European bindweed, withy wind (in basket willow crops), perennial morning glory, small-flowered morning glory, creeping jenny, and possession vine. Taxonomy This plant first gained its scientific name in 1753, when it was described by Linnaeus in the Species Plantarum. In the centuries afterwards it gained many subspecies and varieties across its vast range, as well as synonyms as purportedly new species were described from places like China, Russia, Egypt or Morocco. New species and forms were even described from areas like Chile, Mexico and California when botanists encountered the plant there, although it is not native to these areas. In the ninth volume of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle's Prodromus, published in 1845, Jacques Denys Choisy reduced a number of these synonyms to ten varieties of Convolvulus arvensis, although he also recognised a number of species now also reduced to synonyms of C. arvensis. Over time, most or all of these species and varieties were no longer recognised by the relevant authorities. In the 2009 Flora of Great Britain and Ireland, Peter Derek Sell described nine new forms he believed he had discovered in Cambridgeshire, especially along Fen Road in the village of Bassingbourn cum Kneesworth. The incredible bindweed biodiversity of Bassingbourn cum Kneesworth was not deemed credible by subsequent taxonomists, however, and the species is currently considered to be monotypic by most authorities. Description Convolvulus arvensis is a perennial vine. It will climb to some one metre high. Underground the vine produces more or less woody rhizomes, from which it re-sprouts in the spring, or when the above ground vines are removed. The leaves are spirally arranged, linear to arrowhead-shaped, 2–5 cm long and alternate, with a 1–3 cm petiole. The flowers are trumpet-shaped, 1–2.5 cm diameter, white or pale pink, with five slightly darker pink radial stripes. Flowering occurs in the mid-summer, (in the UK, between June and September,) when white to pale pink, funnel-shaped flowers develop. Flowers are approximately 0.75–1 in (1.9–2.5 cm) across and are subtended by small bracts. Fruit are light brown, rounded and