No. i. Family RANUNCULACE^. (Crowfoot Fam.) 

 Genus CLEMATIS, L. 



From a Greek word meaning a vine or tendril. 



Flowers, rather large, excepting in No. I (Virgin's-Bower). 

 Petals, none. Sepals, four, colored like petals. 

 Stamens, very many, distinct, shorter than the sepals ; 

 attached beneath the seed-cases. Seed-cases, many in 

 a head. Young seeds, one in each case. 



Leaves, compound, or in Leather-Flower (C. Viorna}, the 

 upper ones sometimes simple ; opposite, without 

 stipules. 



Fruit, ornamental and unique, a head of single seeds, each 

 seed tipped with the greatly lengthened feathery or 

 hairy style. Clustered achenes. 



Woody, climbing vines (herbaceous in Leather-Flower, 

 C. Viorna), supported by the twisting and interlocking of 

 their leaf- and leaflet-stems. The juice is acrid. There is 

 but one clematis native to England the Traveller's Joy 

 (C. vitdlbd). 



Sometimes the movements of climbing plants are due 

 to light, but in the clematis the curious interlocking of 

 the stems is probably caused by the irritability of the 



