Bindweed Medicine

I decided each time I enter the garden I must start with a morning glory walk. Yesterday I pulled a bucket-full. Once, I heard a bit of plant wisdom: one should not pull any unidentified weed. Better to have more intimacy with one's microcosm before going through and changing things. I have a long ways to go before I can truthfully follow such guidance.

Recently I came across the book Invasive Plant Medicine by Timothy Lee Scott, who is an acupuncturist and herbalist living in Vermont. He dedicates a couple chapters to the politics of "invasives", one which is titled "The Intelligence of Plants". He discusses 24 specific plants including barberry and dandelion -- a couple of my favorites -- blackberry, english ivy and scotch broom - restoration ecologist's nightmares - and bindweed - the gardener's bane.

I am fascinated by this book's portrayal of bindweed and now I don't know what to believe! I wonder if I should experiment with medicine making or what.

Convolvulus arvensis of the Morning Glory family, came to North America in the 1730's, and was sold as an ornamental, medicinal plant. In TCM no species have ever been used. In Ayurveda, a couple species have been used as a brain tonic, tranquilizer, blood purifier, for uterine bleeding, ulcers and venereal diseases. In Western medicine, bindweed has been used for internal bleeding, fevers, as a purgative and laxative.

Contemporary pharmacology regards bindweed as a purgative, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, cholagogic (bile stimulant) and tranquilizer. Studies have demonstrated the plant's efficacy in reducing tumor growth, decreasing the absorption of carbohydrates in the intestines, reducing different types of stress, and as antimicrobial.

Beyond the human body, bindweed serves in phytoremediation! It cleanses chromium, copper and cadmium from soil. It can survive areas full of heavy metals and assists in the degradation of fuel oil - for example in the Prestige Oil Spill of 2002. Calystegin compounds found in the roots feed rhizosphere bacteria with carbon and nitrogen.

Considering the ever deepening toxicity of our planet, plants like these we will need to turn to and honor for their ability to adapt. I can only wonder at the power of all these other plants in the book, the ways they serve us without our even knowing how to identify them outdoors. Our relationship to bindweed will surely shift in the time to come. For one, I need to reconsider merely stuffing them in the yard waste bin.