A modern reference to temperate woody plants, including updated content from this site and much new material, can be found at Trees and Shrubs Online.

Clematis virginiana L.

Modern name

Clematis virginiana L.

A deciduous, climbing shrub up to 20 ft high; young stems ribbed and almost without down. Leaves nearly always consisting of three leaflets (rarely five), which are ovate, rounded or heart-shaped at the base, coarsely and unequally toothed, borne on a common stalk 112 to 3 in. long; each leaflet on its own stalk 14 to 12 in. long, slightly downy when young. Flowers dull white, 1 to 114 in. across, produced in axillary panicles 3 to 6 in. long in August and September; sepals four, oblong, thin. Seed-vessels with silky, feathered styles, forming silvery heads about 212 in. across.

Native of eastern N. America; introduced in 1767. It is but little grown outside botanic gardens, being inferior in vigour to our native species, and not so attractive as many others. It is allied most closely to C. vitalba, but is distinguished by its three-foliolate instead of five-foliolate leaves. Plants, too, are frequently unisexual.


Genus

Clematis

Other species in the genus