TWO BEAUTIFUL VINES. 



There are two vines which we can find 

 in our wild woods, that are as pretty and 

 unusual as any exotic brought from for- 

 eign land. We may praise and admire 

 the purple Japanese Clematis which 

 makes our yards and lawns so beautiful 

 wit'hits great masses of brilliantblossom 

 in July and August, but it is not a whit 

 more beautiful than the Clematis virgini- 

 ana or Virgin's Bbwer ; or the Clematis 

 viorna or Leather Flower, would be, if 

 they, too, were transplanted from their 

 native woods and tended and fostered by 

 loving care. The Virgin's Bower is get- 

 ting to be a rather popular vine in culti- 

 vation, and there is no more lovely sight 

 than to come upon in our walks and 

 drives large quantities of either of these 

 varieties of Clematis. 



The Clematis viorna, or Leather Flow- 

 er, is more frequently found in rich dark 

 places,, though I have found it on the 

 open roadside, climbing from ten to fif- 

 teen feet high over fences and trees ; its 

 stems are slightly ridged or grooved ; its 

 leaves usually compound, the upper ones 

 being often found simple and stemless, 

 Avith from three to seven leaflets that are 

 two, or three, lobed and nearly smooth. 

 Its flowers are very peculiar, being of a 

 dark pinkish purple in color, with no pet-- 

 a:ls;. its sepals are about one inch long, 

 very thick and leathery, cohering 

 throughout, except that its tips are turn- 

 ed back and are a little egg-shaped or 

 pointed ; it has a great many stamens and 

 anthers. There is another variety of Cle- 

 matis that is rarer than this, but resem- 

 bles it very closely : the Clematis pitche- 

 ria, or Pitcher Plant. 



The Clematis viorna is surely well 

 worth our knowing and study, not only 

 for its odd and curious flowers, and beau- 

 tiful foliage, but for its fruit, with its 

 plume-like tails of pure white often one 

 and a half to two inches long. 



The other variety. Clematis virginiana, 

 or Virgin's Bower, Traveler's Joy or Old 

 Man's Beard, as it is variously called, is 

 a much more common variety and may 



be found in great abundance climbing 

 over bushes and along walls and fences, 

 in nearly all woods, from Canada to 

 Georgia, and the Mississippi river, grow- 

 ing mostly in hilly, rocky places. 



It climbs by the help' of its twining and 

 interlocking leaf and leaflet st^ms, and is 

 a woody, hardy vine, climbing like the 

 Leather Flower from ten to fifteen feet 

 high. It has opposite compound leaves 

 on stems two or three inches long, with 

 three leaflets and toothed edges; some- 

 times lobed, two or three inches in length, 

 and with a pointed apex. In August 

 and September we will find this vine one 

 mass of snowy white flowers, about 

 three-quarters of an inch across, grow- 

 ing in loose, smooth clusters from the 

 axils of the leaves. Like the other 

 Clematis, it has no petals, but four 

 white sepals resembling petals and nu- 

 merovis stamens, often twenty-eight or 

 thirty in number, bearing short, blunt 

 anthers. 



The staminate and pistillate flowers are 

 found on separate plants, which accounts 

 for our finding sometimes a bush that is 

 a mass of blossom, another bearing its 

 blossoms sparsely scattered along its 

 branches. One is the staminate and the 

 other the pistillate plant. When it is in 

 full bloom, the foliage will be almost 

 hidden by the snowy blossoms, while late 

 in the fall it will be again eclipsed by the 

 white nodding plumes of the seed pods, 

 that when you find a tree covered with it, 

 looks like a drift of early snow. It is 

 from its seed pods that it gets its name 

 of "Old Man's Beard." Charles Dar- 

 win, in his study otf "Movements in 

 Plants" (which we all would enjoy read- 

 ing), made a close study of the many 

 varieties of Clematis. 



These are but two of the many beau- 

 tiful vines that are to be found in our 

 woods, yet there are a great number of 

 others just as beautiful, the bindweeds, 

 passion vines, bedstraws, convolvulus, 

 etc., all of which will well repay us to 

 examine and study. 



Jennie Owen Cochran. 



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