THE TRAVELLER’S JOY. 
CLEMATIS VITALBA. 
“ Some more aspiring catch the neighbour shrub 
With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch, 
Else unadorn’d, with many a gay festoon. 
And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well 
The strength they borrow with the grace they lend.” 
“ Traveller’s Joy” is the popular name of that 
species of clematis called Clematis Vitalba. It is a 
climbing shrub, with white almond-like scented flowers, 
growing best on a calcareous soil. “ Its seeds,” says 
Sir J. E. Smith, “ have long, feathery, silky tails, 
forming beautiful tufts conspicuous in wet weather, and 
will retain their vegetative principle for many years, if 
kept dry.” Of a genus containing above eighty species, 
this elegant climber is the only one indigenous to Great 
Britain. Like the ivy, it hangs pendulous from broken 
precipices or old walls, to which its clinging branches 
and cheerful blossoms lend a softening grace; and from 
this circumstance may have originated its well-known 
and well-deserved appellation of “ Traveller’s Joy.” 
