194 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Clematis orientalis from the Caucasus and Persia, extending thence 
into Northern China and Manchuria, was introduced in 1731. It has 
ovate pointed sepals, downy inside, and glabrous shoots. Lindley 
described and figured a very closely allied form in the Bot. Mag. 
t. 4495 under the name Clematis graveolens, but this is probably only 
a minor variation of a variable plant, with rather larger somewhat 
downy leaves, less glaucous than the typical C. orientalis. 
An allied plant C. glauca Willdenow, also from Northern China 
and Kansu, has been called C. orientalis by Finet and Gagnepain, but 
it is quite distinct by its sepals being woolly at the margins only. 
It has been referred as a variety to C. orientalis by some botanists — 
e.g. Hooker as C. orientalis var. obtusifolia and Maximowicz as var- 
glauca, but deserves a separate name. E. H. Wilson introduced a 
fine form of it from Szechwan when collecting for Messrs. Veitch, 
more vigorous than the type form with bronzy-yellow flowers pro- 
duced usually rather late in England, but from August onwards in 
its native hot, dry, rocky places. This is Clematis glauca var. 
akebioides. 
Clematis tangutica was figured in the Bot. Mag. t. 7710 under 
Maximowicz's name C. orientalis var. tangutica, and by Andre in 
Rev . Hort., 1902, p. 528. The figure in Bot. Mag. shows the sepals 
narrowly pointed and the typical plant has this character, making 
the flowers less bell-like than in the var. obtusiuscula and thinner. 
Andre's figure shows them blunter, but his description gives a some- 
what greater length to them than our plant usually shows. The type 
which is native in Central Asia was introduced to Kew from St. 
Petersburg in 1898, but Wilson, Purdom, and Farrer all sent home seeds 
of the variety from Szechwan and Kansu, and its broader, more bell- 
like flowers make it, I think, a superior plant. With us at Wisley it 
grows in full sun and spreads vigorously over the ground or climbs 
over supports, bearing, from July onwards, as Farrer describes it in 
Kansu, "innumerable blossoms that hang in the mass like big Fritillaries 
of pure unchequered gold." The flowers are solitary on 4- or 5 -inch 
stalks and later in the year they turn into " by far the most beautiful 
and wild whirligigs of snowy silk that even this Struwelpeter Family 
produces." While I cannot subscribe entirely to this last quotation 
of Farrer's, bearing in mind the wonderful sight of our own " old 
man's beard," yet these fruits add not a little to the charm of this 
most vigorous plant. Its downy young foliage and shoots and 
peduncles distinguish it from C. orientalis and C. glauca, and its flowers 
3! to 4 in. across are more handsome than either, downy on the outside 
of the sepal, not within. The variety was given an Award of Merit 
when shown at Vincent Square in 1913 by Mr. F. Stern, but Farrer's 
seeds have given somewhat less vigorous plants with thinner flowers 
than the earlier collector's plants possessed. Both seedlings and seeds 
of the best form have been widely distributed from Wisley during 
the last few years under the name^C. tangutica obtusiuscula and also 
seeds and seedlings from Farrer's collections Nos. 307 and 342. The 
