Glossy, fleshy kidney-shaped leaves and pink-and-white striped trumpets lying flat on the sand of a dune
Sea bindweed, Calystegia soldanella.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Sea bindweed
Native · flowers Jun–Aug · sand dunes and sandy shingle
Calystegia soldanella — Convolvulaceae
Sea bindweed is a trailing, non-twining perennial of sand dunes and the upper beach, whose fleshy, kidney-shaped leaves and pink-and-white striped trumpet flowers lie flat on the sand. Unlike its climbing garden and hedgerow cousins it never smothers other plants: it binds sand, not shrubs. Dune loss and trampling have made it rare in many places.
How to spot them
- ▸Pink trumpet flowers with five white stripes, 3–5 cm across, open on short stalks from the sand
- ▸Fleshy, glossy, kidney-shaped leaves on stalks, lying close to the ground
- ▸Trailing stems that creep across sand and do not climb or twine
- ▸Grows on sand dunes and sandy shingle above the strandline, often beside sea holly
- ▸Look-alikes: hedge bindweed and field bindweed — climbing, twining plants with arrow-shaped leaves and white or pale flowers of hedges and fields; the pink, kidney-leaved, non-climbing plant on the beach is sea bindweed
How to know it
Unlike its hedgerow relatives, this dune plant never twines or climbs; it trails across the sand and has rounded rather than arrow-shaped leaves
Sea bindweed.
Loss of dunes and increased recreational disturbance caused many losses of this strandline plant during the twentieth century
Sea bindweed — BSBI.
A trailing perennial that grows above the strandline, often alongside sea holly on dunes and sandy shingle
Sea bindweed.
A pink-flowered, Mediterranean-Atlantic species, it has declined as dunes were lost, unlike its weedy white-flowered climbing cousins of hedges and gardens
Sea bindweed vs hedge bindweed.
Family Convolvulaceae, shared with morning glory and sweet potato, and native to Britain and Ireland as well as western North America
Sea bindweed.
Quick-fire facts
- •Native trailing perennial of sand dunes and sandy shingle above the strandline (BSBI)
- •Family Convolvulaceae — the morning-glory family, which includes sweet potato
- •A Mediterranean-Atlantic species, also found in western North America and widely naturalised elsewhere (BSBI)
- •BSBI records many losses in the twentieth century from dune loss and recreational disturbance
- •Recent Sefton coast surveys (2010 and 2024) show it copes with habitat change but faces other threats
- •Flowers June to August; pink with five white stripes
- •It often grows with sea holly, and with the marram grass that builds the dunes, and helps to bind loose sand
- •Not the same as the pernicious garden weeds hedge bindweed and field bindweed, which twine and climb
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland — Calystegia soldanella (L.) R.Br. (Sea Bindweed)
- Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland — Bindweed identification