Woody vines. Leaf blade [simple] 1-2-pinnate, lobed or few-lobed, margins entire. Inflorescences axillary, on suppressed shoots from previous year's stems, 2-3-flowered bracteate fascicles or cymes, or flowers solitary, peduncle bracteate. Flowers bisexual, slightly or not nodding; sepals usually wide-spreading, not connivent, blue, violet, or rose violet [rarely white], broadly obovate to elliptic-rhombic, thin; filaments flattened but slender, glabrous or sparsely pubescent; staminodes absent. Achenes flattened; beak usually less than 1.5 cm, glabrous or silky.

Distribution

Temperate regions, North America, Eurasia.

Discussion

Species 6 (1 in the flora).

Clematis subg. Viticella has sometimes been included in Clematis subg. Viorna, as suggested by F. B. Essig (1992), although it is very different from subg. Viorna in the strict sense in the aspect of its flowers and was treated as a distinct genus by earlier authors.

Several other large-flowered European and Asiatic species and hybrids, including Clematis campaniflora Brotero, with broadly campanulate perianth, and C. florida Thunberg, C. lanuginosa Lindley, and C. ×jackmanii T. Moore (= C. lanuginosa × C. viticella), with rotate perianth often with 6-8 sepals, occasionally persist after cultivation; in some cases they have become very locally naturalized.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Clematis viticella