Clematis - virgins, bower and species

CLEMATIS, in botany a genus of the crowfoot family (Ranunculaceae), containing 220 species and widely distributed. It is represented in England by Clematis vitalba, old man's beard or traveller's joy, a common plant on chalky or light soil. The plants are shrubby climbers with generally compound, opposite leaves, the stalk of which is sensitive to contact like a tendril, becoming twisted round suitable objects and thereby giving sup port to the plant. The flowers are arranged in axillary or terminal clusters ; they have no petals, but white or coloured, often large sepals, and an indefinite number of stamens and carpels. They contain no honey, and are visited by insects for the pollen, which is plentiful. The fruit is a head of achenes, each bearing the long-bearded, persistent style, suggesting the popular name. This feathery style is an important agent in the distribution of the seed by means of the wind.

Inclusive of the sections

Viorna and Atragene, which some botanists regard as separate genera, there are some 3o species of Clematis native to North America. Of these, the following repre sentatives are more or less cultivated : the Virginia virgin's bower (C. virginiana), found from Nova Scotia to Manitoba and south ward to Georgia and Tennessee ; the western virgin's bower (C. ligusticifolia), growing from North Dakota and Missouri west ward to British Columbia and California; the purple virgin's bower (C. verticillaris), found from Hudson bay to Minnesota and south-eastward to Connecticut and Virginia ; the scarlet virgin's bower (C. texensis), native to Texas; and the pipe-stem virgin's bower (C. lasiantha), of California and Oregon.

Several of the species, especially the large-flowered ones, are favourite garden plants, well adapted for covering trellises or walls, or trailing over the ground. Many garden forms have been produced by hybridization; among the best known is C. Jack manni.

See

T. Moore and G. Jackman, The Clematis as a Garden Flower; G. Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening, i. (1885) and Supplements.