Clematis

Where it grows

The genus Clematis includes around three hundred species across temperate regions of both hemispheres. Wild C. vitalba — “old man’s beard” or traveller’s joy — drapes English hedgerows; C. armandii and C. montana from China climb high into trees; the large-flowered hybrids descend mostly from C. patens and C. lanuginosa, also Chinese.

How to recognise it

Twining climbers with leaves opposite on the stems; clematis climbs by wrapping its leaf petioles around supports rather than by tendrils or aerial roots. The flowers have no true petals — what look like petals are sepals, ranging from four to twelve and often forming a flat starburst seven to twenty-five centimetres across. Fluffy seedheads follow.

Garden & cultural uses

The genus is divided into three pruning groups: spring-flowering on old wood (no pruning), early-summer large-flowered hybrids (light pruning), and late-summer flowering on new wood (hard pruning to thirty centimetres). The C. viticella late group is the most reliable and resists wilt better than the large early hybrids.

In poetry

Tennyson called the traveller’s joy “the white-flowered hawthorn of the south,” and its fluffy autumn seedheads remain one of the few flowers visible in winter English hedgerows.