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Clematis napaulensis DC.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Clematis napaulensis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/clematis/clematis-napaulensis/). Accessed 2024-11-09.

Synonyms

  • C. forrestii W. W. Sm.

Glossary

bract
Reduced leaf often subtending flower or inflorescence.
entire
With an unbroken margin.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
involucre
A ring of bracts surrounding an inflorescence.
lanceolate
Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.
trifoliolate
With three leaflets.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Clematis napaulensis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/clematis/clematis-napaulensis/). Accessed 2024-11-09.

An evergreen climber up to 30 ft high; young shoots grooved, greyish. Leaves trifoliolate or quinquefoliolate; the latter found only on long barren shoots of the current season. Leaflets of thin texture, glabrous, ovate-lanceolate, pointed, either entire or with a few large teeth, or even three-lobed; 112 to 312 in. long, 12 to 112 in. wide; the terminal one the largest. Flowers produced in winter, eight or ten together at the joints of the stem, each on its own stalk. Flower-stalk 34 to 112 in. long, furnished with a cup-shaped, downy bract 14 in. long, and very downy between the bract and the sepals. Sepals four, ovate, creamy yellow, slightly spreading, 12 to 1 in. long, 16 in. wide, covered with silky down. Stamens very numerous, up to 1 in. long, purple. Seed-vessel with silky-white tails 1 in. or more long. Bot. Mag., t. 9037.

Native of N. India and S.W. China. Forrest found it in the latter area in 1912 and it was named after him by Sir W. W. Smith. In 1925 (see Botanical Magazine, loc. cit.) Dr Stapf identified it with the Himalayan C. napaulensis. The chief beauty of the flower is in the purple stamens and anthers which are in admirable contrast with the creamy sepals. Botanically the species is related to C. cirrhosa in having a cup-shaped involucre or bract on the flower-stalk. It will no doubt be hardy in our warmer counties, but is as yet very rare. The figure in the Botanical Magazine was made from a plant growing at Caerhays Castle, Cornwall, where Forrest’s form was first raised. It would no doubt be hardy in the warmer counties but elsewhere is best regarded as a cool greenhouse climber. As such it was given an Award of Merit when shown by Kew in November 1957. It bears its flowers through the winter under glass.