Garden Alphabet: Clematis

Clematis seemed to be blooming everywhere on our recent visit back to our home state of Ohio. They were very popular wrapped around porches, mailboxes and almost any other trellis structure you could find. There was a tremendous amount of variety in the clematis, too. These purple flowers struck my eye, but I also saw white, pink and red — striped and plain and all different sorts of bloom forms.

Garden Alphabet: Clematis | A Gardener's Notebook with Douglas E. Welch

Clematis

“Clematis (KLEma-tis)[2] is a genus of about 300 species[3] within the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. Their garden hybrids have been popular among gardeners,[4] beginning with Clematis × jackmanii, a garden standby since 1862; more hybrid cultivars are being produced constantly. They are mainly of Chinese and Japanese origin. Most species are known as clematis in English, while some are also known astraveller’s joy, a name invented for the sole British native, C. vitalba, by the herbalist John Gerard; virgin’s bower for C. viticella; old man’s beard, applied to several with prominent seedheads; and leather flower or vase vine for the North American Clematis viorna.“ — Wikipedia.org

More information on Clematis:
 
Plants and Seeds:
 
 

Previously in Garden Alphabet:

Read more on this topic:

  1. Garden Alphabet: Dietes (Fortnight Lily)
  2. Garden Alphabet: Japanese Cherry (Prunus serrulata)
  3. Garden Alphabet: Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota)
  4. Garden Alphabet: Catalpa
  5. Garden Alphabet: Datura from Santa Cruz Island