rA KATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Thus constituted' the genus Clematis includes wood}', usually 

 climbing plants, rarely sufl'rutescent or herbaceous, with the leaves 

 always opposite and exstipulate, simple or compound, ternate or 

 pinnate, the petiole of variable length and sometimes twining.' In 

 Naravelia it bears two leaflets, and is then prolonged into a tendril 

 which supports the branches. We shall see later on that the 

 structure of these and of the stem presents very peculiar characters. 

 The flowers may be terminal or axillary, solitary as in C. Viticella 

 L., or, as in C. Vitalba L., in cymes which are themselves united 

 into a raceme with opposite ramifications. In certain species with 

 precocious flowering (as C. montana Benth.) the flowers are axillary, 

 not to the leaves themselves, but to the bracts which represent them 

 in the lower part of the bud ; above the flowers the branch afterwards 

 bears true leaves, with leaf-buds axillary to them. This genus 

 includes about a hundred genera, inhabitants of all the temperate 

 regions of both hemispheres, or even of the warmest countries, as 

 South America,' the borders of the Indian ocean, Eastern Asia,' 

 Australia,* and as far south as New Zealand* and Tasmania.' 



ThalictruM^ is easy to characterize when we know Clematis ; it is 

 Clematis, but with an imbricate aestivation and alternate leaves. If 

 we examine, for example, T. aquilegifolium L. (figs. 97, 98), we see 

 that the flower is hermaphrodite, and that the pedicel, a little swollen 

 above, is continued into a conical depressed receptacle which bears 

 the coloured perianth, the androceum and the gynajceum, one after 

 another. The calyx is formed of four' decussate free sepals of 

 alternative-imbricate aestivation.'" These leaves have an articula- 

 tion as it were at the base, and fall early from the receptacle. The 



Clematit. , 

 Sections 7< 



1. Atragene (L.). •• RoxBTJBGH, PI. Coromand., t. 188.— Hook. 



2. Naravelia (L.). & Thoms., Fl. Ltd., i. 4.— SlEB. & Zrcc. Fl. 



3. C/ieinps-is (DC). Jap. Fam., G8. 



4. Midatis (Spacu). * Hesth. & F. Mcell., Fl. Austral., i. 1. 



5. Viorna (I'khs.). — Muralfa « Hook. F., Fl. N. Zealand, 6. 

 (Adans., ex E.NUL.). ^ Hook. F., Fl. Taxman., 2. 



6. Fi/u-cZ/a (MucNcu). * Thaliclntm T., Inst., 270, t. 1K3 ; Cor., 



7. Flammula (DC). 20.— L., QeH.,n. 6U7.— Jrs9., Gen. 232.— DC, 

 Valvaria is a genua admitted by Sebinge Prodr., i. 11. — Spacu, Suit, a Bujf'., vii. 237. — 



(op. cit., iii. 93) for CUmatis inlegrifolia, Enul., 0«i., n. 4772. — Payek, Organoij., 253, 



ochroleuca, and uvala. t. Iviii. — B. H., Ofn., 4, n. 3. — H. Bn., Adam- 



' It has been noticed that the petioles mny $onia, iv. 5i. 



twine in either direction ; and tliut in the species ' There are tlowers with five sepals inibrieated 



with persistent leaves the tendrils formed by (sometimes quineuncially), or more rurtly with 



their petioles persist also. six, seven, and upwards. 



' A. S. H., Fl. Jiras. iner., i. 1. — Maut., Fl. '" The imbrication may bo dilfiTent even with 



Bras., Ranunc., 1 IC. four sejuils. 



