• Editor’s Note: “Roadside Botany” is a snapshot look at the amazing plant life that can be found in Kane County, IL, with photography and text by Valerie Blaine, nature programs manager for the Forest Preserve District of Kane County. You can reach her at blainevalerie@kaneforest.com. 

Have you ever noticed a Kleenex thrown by the side of a trail — and found out when you got closer that it was a white flower? Most likely the tissue was actually a bindweed flower.

The plant is known as field bindweed, but I prefer the cooler name, “Convolvulus” (which sort of rolls off the tongue). It’s not native to Illinois, and it’s considered an aggressive weed.

I like it, though, for its entertainment value. That is, if you look closely, most of these white flowers have little creatures inside, drawn by the nectaries deep inside each blossom. The flowers produce an elixir that insects can’t resist.

If you’re lucky, you might find a predator on a bindweed flower, like this crab spider. She parked herself strategically on this bindweed blossom. She was hip to the fact that she could get a good meal from inebriated insects drinking nectar inside.

Crab Spider in Convolvulus

CREDIT: Valerie Blaine