Erect Silky Leather Flower on Staten Island 
ARTHUR HoLiick 
In House’s Wild Flowers of New York,’ part 1, on pages 112 
and 114, plate 74, may be found a description and colored illustra- 
tion of Viorna ochroleuca (Aiton) Small, the erect silky leather 
flower, or dwarf clematis, which is of peculiar local interest, not 
only for the reason that Staten Island now represents the only 
known locality for the species in New York State, but also for the 
reason that the specimen from which the illustration was made 
was specially collected for the purpose on Todt Hill, June 11, 1917, . 
as was mentioned in our Museum Bulletin for July of that year. 
It is more or less common locally from southern Pennsylvania 
to Georgia; but it has not been recorded from anywhere in the 
intermediate region between the locality farthest north in Penn- 
sylvania and the locality in southern New York, on Staten Island. 
So far as any records are available the species appears to have 
been first discovered about 1680, in Virginia, by John Banister, 
by whom it was catalogued under the descriptive polynomial 
“ Clem.[atis| erecta, humilis non ramosa, folus subrotundts, flore 
unico ochroleuco”;* and the earliest illustrated description of the 
species, by Plukenet,* was also, apparently, based upon specimens 
from Virginia. These figures include one showing a plant in 
flower and one in fruit, and it is interesting to note that in the 
latter figure the leaves are depicted as incised, a feature that occurs 
occasionally in connection with our local plants. . 
The binomial, Clematis ochroleuca, was first applied to the 
species by Aiton,? in a description of specimens cultivated in the 
1 Wild Flowers of New York, by Homer D. House. Univ. State of 
N. Y., State Mus. Mem. 15, pt. land 2. Albany 1918. 
2 Banister, Johannes, in Ray, Historiz Plantarum Tomus Secundus, p. 
1926 [erroneously printed “1928”]. London 1688. 
8 Plukenet, Leonhard, Opera, vol. 3 (Mantissa), p. 51. London 1700. 
Idem, vol. 4, pl. 379, fig. 4, 5. London 1705. 
4 Aiton, William, Hortus Kewensis, etc., ed. 1, vol. 2, p. 260-261. London 
1789. 
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