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TRAVELLER'S JOY
Clematis Vitalba
Family RANUNCULACEAE
In chalky districts especially, this climbing shrub will be met with at every turn, scrambling over the hedges, clinging persistently to every branch or shoot it touches. In autumn, when the feathery awns are lengthening on its seed-vessels, it is aptly called "Old Man's Beard."
It is a perennial plant, and is found only to the south of Denbigh and Stafford. The stem is tough, and it climbs by means of its leafstalks which curl round any likely support and become hard as wire.
The leaves are opposite and compound, the leaflets usually five. The slightly fragrant flowers have no corolla, but the four thick, downy sepais are coloured greenish-white to serve instead. The stamens are a crowd round the central cluster of many-bearded styles, which afterwards elongate into plumy tails and jointly form the " Old Man's Beard."
It is the only British member of the genus; but a large number of foreign species, with larger flowers, are cultivated in our gardens.
Flowering from July to September.
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Though only an annual it contrives to flower for about five months, June to October. Known also as Garlic Mustard. It is one of those plentiful hedgerow vitalba clematis weeds that are constantly met with. An annual, it is an erect - growing, freshlooking plant, though its stems have an indination to grovel instead of rise. The leaves are more clematis vitalba or less heart-shaped, with rounded teeth at the edges, on long stalks of soft texture and hairy beneath.
Found in moist pastures and the neighbourhood of streams. especially in hilly locahties, although rather scarce in clematis vitalba southeastern England. It is a perennial, and has a short, thick rootstock from which hand some leaves spread on very long footstalks. The leaves are roundish or kidney-shaped, cut clematis vitalba into seven or nine lobes, with toothed edges. Each lobe is folded along the middle, and this pleating, combined with the pinked edge, suggested the name of Lady's Mantle vitalba clematis. The slender stem, a toot or eighteen inches long, is at first decumbent, afterwards assuming a more upright direction.
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