Flora of North America species comparison

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Clematis vitalba

Clematis fremontii

evergreen clematis, old-man's beard, Traveler's-joy, Traveler's-joy clematis, white virgin's-bower

Fremont's clematis, Fremont's leather flower
Stems

climbing with tendril-like petioles and leaf-rachises, to 12 m. Leaf blade pinnately 5-foliolate;

leaflets cordiform, 8 × (2-)3-5(-6) cm, margins entire to regularly crenate or dentate;

surfaces abaxially minutely pubescent on veins, adaxially glabrous.

erect, 1.5-4(-7) dm, moderately to densely villous, sometimes sparsely so near nodes.
Leaves

blade ovate-elliptic to broadly ovate, unlobed, 5-14 × 3.5-11 cm, leathery, prominently reticulate adaxially;

surfaces abaxially glabrous or sparsely villous-tomentose on veins, not glaucous.
Inflorescences

axillary and terminal, (3-)5-22-flowered cymes.

terminal, flowers solitary;

bracts absent.
Flowers

bisexual;

pedicel 1-1.5 cm, slender;

sepals wide-spreading, not recurved, white to cream, elliptic or oblanceolate to obovate, ca. 1 cm, length ca. 2 times width, abaxially and adaxially tomentose;

stamens ca. 50;

filaments glabrous;

staminodes absent;

pistils 20 or more.

narrowly urn-shaped;

sepals pale blue-violet to purple, pale green toward tips, lanceolate, 2-4 cm, margins not expanded or 1-3 mm wide, thin or ± thick, not crispate or slightly crispate, tomentose, tips acuminate, spreading to recurved, abaxially glabrous to sparsely villous.
Achenes

nearly terete, not conspicuously rimmed, densely pubescent;

beak ca. 3.5 cm.

bodies proximally pubescent with silky or sparse short hairs, distally cobwebby-tomentose;

beak 1.5-3(-3.5) cm, proximally silky-tomentose, sparsely appressed-pubescent to nearly glabrous toward tip.
2n

= 16.

Clematis vitalba

Clematis fremontii
Phenology Flowering summer (Jun–Aug). Flowering spring.
Habitat Roadsides, waste ground, secondary growth Calcareous prairies and glades
Elevation 0-100 m (0-300 ft) 100-700 m (300-2300 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
ME; OR; WA; BC; ON; native to Europe; n Africa [Introduced in North America]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
KS; MO; NE
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Clematis vitalba is naturalized in only a few sites in eastern North America and northwestern Oregon to the Puget Sound.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

R. O. Erickson (1943) separated the Missouri plants as Clematis fremontii var. riehlii R. O. Erickson on the basis of their supposedly greater height and more widely spaced, proportionately narrower leaves. As noted by C. S. Keener (1967), however, so much overlap occurs in the ranges of variation of the Missouri and the Kansas-Nebraska populations that recognition of these varieties is not possible.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 3. FNA vol. 3.
Parent taxa Ranunculaceae > Clematis > subg. Clematis Ranunculaceae > Clematis > subg. Viorna
Sibling taxa
C. addisonii, C. albicoma, C. baldwinii, C. bigelovii, C. catesbyana, C. coactilis, C. columbiana, C. crispa, C. drummondii, C. fremontii, C. glaucophylla, C. hirsutissima, C. lasiantha, C. ligusticifolia, C. morefieldii, C. occidentalis, C. ochroleuca, C. orientalis, C. pauciflora, C. pitcheri, C. recta, C. reticulata, C. socialis, C. tangutica, C. terniflora, C. texensis, C. versicolor, C. viorna, C. virginiana, C. viticaulis, C. viticella
C. addisonii, C. albicoma, C. baldwinii, C. bigelovii, C. catesbyana, C. coactilis, C. columbiana, C. crispa, C. drummondii, C. glaucophylla, C. hirsutissima, C. lasiantha, C. ligusticifolia, C. morefieldii, C. occidentalis, C. ochroleuca, C. orientalis, C. pauciflora, C. pitcheri, C. recta, C. reticulata, C. socialis, C. tangutica, C. terniflora, C. texensis, C. versicolor, C. viorna, C. virginiana, C. vitalba, C. viticaulis, C. viticella
Synonyms C. fremontii var. riehlii, Viorna fremontii
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 544. (1753) S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 10: 339. (1875)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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