CLEMATIS. 



THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. CLEMATIS. 401 



climbers. It is quite hardy and vigorous, 

 and may frequently be seen covering walls 

 to a great height ; also will run up trees 

 and prove very effective in that way, 

 thriving in ordinary soil and increased by 

 seed or layers. C. lilacina is a hybrid of 

 C. montana and something else. It is 

 very delicate in colour, and very hardy. 

 I plant it at the foot of trees, a favourite 

 way of mine of growing Clematises. 



C. NUTANS (The Nodding Virgin's 

 Bower). After coming, as I thought, to 

 the end of my enjoyment of these plants, 

 in 1912 I find in the middle of October 

 pretty flowers of the nodding Clematis. 

 We have it in several positions, and it 

 seems to grow well in all. It is a Chinese 

 kind, fragrant, of good growth, and a real 

 addition. Some of the smaller kinds of 

 Clematis are scarcely worth cultivation ; 

 but this may well be, it carries the bloom- 

 ing season so much further on in the year. 



C. ORIENTALIS (Yellow Indian Virgin's 

 Bower). A vigorous climber growing 12 

 to 30 feet high, flowering abundantly in 

 August and September, the four sepals 

 being of a yellow colour, tinged with 

 green, and having a sweet but not very 

 strong fragrance. The fruit heads are 

 handsome with the silky tail attached to 

 each seed vessel. Mountains of India and 

 N. Asia. 



C. PANICULATA (Japanese Virgin's 

 Bower). A vigorous climber, growing 

 to a height of 30 feet or more. The 

 flowers have a hawthorn-like fragrance, 

 the four sepals being of a rather dull white. 

 It is hardy in Britain, and flowers during 

 September, but with nothing like the pro- 

 fusion that makes it so beautiful a climber 

 in America. 



C. PATENS, Next to C. lanuginosa, this 

 is perhaps the most important of the 

 wild types of Clematis. It is a native of 

 Japan (having been found on the Isle of 

 Nippon), and possibly of China also. It 

 was introduced about sixty years ago by 

 Siebold, who obtained it in the gardens 

 near Yokohama, where it had, no doubt, 

 been long in cultivation. The sepals are 

 from six to eight in number, narrow in the 

 form originally introduced, and a delicate 

 mauve colour, but the varieties subse- 

 quently obtained from it under cultivation 

 have flowers much larger, the colours 

 varying from white to deep violet and 

 blue. Its value as one of the parent 

 species of the garden Clematis is due not 

 only to its beauty, but more especially to 

 its flowering as early as May and June. 



C. RUBENS (The Rosy Virgin's Bower) 

 is a recent and very pretty form from 

 China, usually classed as a variety of 

 C. montana, but I think distinct, finer in 

 habit, and less rampant. A friend who 

 grows it in N. Germany tells me it is 

 hardier there than montana. It is excel- 

 lent for various garlands over walls, light 



arches, and over low trees and shrubs. 

 It is of easy culture in ordinary soil. 



C. TANGUTICA (The Russian Virgin's 

 Bower). A noble kind of recent coming, 

 often wrongly described as a variety of 

 C. orientalis. It is a distinct and finer 

 plant. The error has been fostered by 

 botanists, who do not often see the plants 

 alive, and " argue " from the dried plants. 



Clematis Lady Caroline Neville. 



It grows freely here in our ordinary soil, 

 deep and moist, but no trellis is large 

 enough for it. The large, deep yellow 

 flowers are followed by handsome seed 

 heads. 



C. VIRGINIANA (American Virgin's 

 Bower). The common Virgin's Bower 

 of the United States and Canada. The 

 flowers are borne in flat panicles, the sepals 

 thin and dull white, and although hardy 

 enough, is not in Britain so strong and 

 woody a grower as our native Traveller's 



Joy- 



C. VITALBA (Traveller's Joy). There 

 is no climber native to Britain that gives 

 so near an approach to tropical luxuriance 



2 C 



