H2 POPULAR GARDEN FLOWERS 



our old plants by the old names.; but since the florists 

 have given us such beautiful varieties we must, in 

 ordinary courtesy, accept their names for these sorts. 



The wild Clematis, known as Traveller's Joy, Vir- 

 gin's Bower, and Old Man's Beard, is the botanist's 

 species vitalba. The French have one beautiful name 

 for it, les cheveux de Jesus, and also another that is not 

 so pleasing. They sometimes call it Fherbe d gueux, 

 or Beggar's Weed, because unscrupulous mendicants 

 blister their legs with a plaster of the leaves in order 

 to assist their appeals for alms; or rub the juice into 

 sores on their hands and arms. 



The reader may be surprised to hear of such uses 

 of a plant that is not generally regarded as poisonous; 

 but, in point of fact, the plant belongs to the Buttercup 

 family (Ranunculaceae), and all parts of it are poisonous. 

 If fresh leaves were chewed, ulcers would form in the 

 mouth ; and if the juices were swallowed, they would 

 probably produce severe dysentery. 



The name Traveller's Joy appears to have been 

 first given to Clematis Vitalba by Gerard, tor we read 

 in his " Herball " : " It is commonly called Viorna quasi 

 vias ornans, of decking and adorning ways and hedges 

 where people travel, and thereupon I haue named it 

 the Trauveiler's loie." The specific name vitalba is in 

 allusion to the white fluffy masses of achenes (an achene 

 is a dry single carpel containing a seed, and it does not 

 open when ripe) which give the plant its distinctive 

 beauty in late summer. It grows luxuriantly in the 

 tall thorn and hazel hedgerows on the chalk lands in 

 East Kent, and also on the great blackthorn hedges 

 which skirt the road from Hythe to Romney Marsh, 

 covering both with a fleecy white mantle in August 

 and September. Large hedges, with their tangle of 



