Clematis ochroleuca Aiton

IENCES
imed leather flowers.1 Edgar T.
lvania.
> species of short-stemmed broad-
esent in the eastern United States,
• vata Pursh. Field studies of this
shale-barrens2 and elsewhere have
md ranges have been to some ex-
re recorded may serve to show.
3 of the plants in question are pre-
Certain characters often regarded
constant and variable, and have ac-
eration. For instance, leaf-termina-
utish or even acuminate from one
int. Again, the violet tinge on the
iense on one individual and almost
e it, with intermediates elsewhere in
s of sepals and of achenes vary by
spending on the degree of maturity
1 on which they are borne.
aboratory of the University oi Pennsylvania.
may 4,1931	wherry: leatherflowers	195
Key to the Eastern Short-Stemmed Leatherflowers {Clematis spp.)
Plant sparingly branched and small leaves relatively few; head of fruit tend-
ing to be spherical, about 6 cm. in diameter; achenes nearly symmetrical.
Under side of leaves glabrate to moderately pubescent; hairs of achene-
appendages deep, or exceptionally pale, yellow; range chiefly at
altitudes below 1000 feet, mostly in Piedmont____C. ochroleuca ovata
Under side of leaves moderately to densely pubescent; hairs of achene-
appendages pale, or exceptionally deep, yellow; range chiefly at alti-
tudes above 1000 feet, mostly in Blue Ridge____C. ochroleuca sericea
Plant copiously branched and small leaves relatively numerous; leaves glab-
rate.
Head of fruit nearly spherical, about 5 cm. in diameter; acl
symmetrical, their appendage-hairs brown.....
Head of fruit spheroidal, about 4 cm. high and 6 cm/'nqwad; achenes'«
rather unsymmetrical, their appendage-hairs	^z^bfqojn© A L
Clematis ochroleuca Aiton.—This plant varies in a nunmfei^of aspects frorp
one clump to another, but the only features in which such va^iq^oiSsEbws’'
any recognizable geographical relationships are those enumerated u^tl^&ey.
Two extreme variants with respect to degree of leaf-pubescence have received
specific names, but in view of the complete gradation between them only
varietal distinction seems justified. It is accordingly here proposed to divide
this species into two varieties, as follows:
Clematis ochroleuca ovata (Pursh) Wherry, status novus3
C. ovata Pursh, not of current manuals
C. integrifolia a ochroleuca Kuntze.
The specimen on which Pursh based his specific name is preserved in the
Sherard Herbarium at Oxford University, having been collected by Catesby
and labelled by him with a citation from Plukenet, followed by the words
“negroes head.” The latter has been regarded as a locality,4 but as Catesby
did not in general add place-names to his labels, and as “ nigger-head”—
in allusion to the globular mass of kinky plumes—is the term universally
applied to the leatherflowers by laymen in the south, it is believed to repre-
sent a common name instead.
In his work on the Natural History of Carolina, etc., Catesby did not men-
tion this plant. Pursh5 supposed it to have been obtained in South Carolina,
Small6 in that state or Georgia. It could equally well have come from Vir-
ginia, which was also visited by Catesby, as shown by the following quotation :7
“In the Year 1714 I travelled from the lower Part of St. James's River in
Virginia to that Part of the Apalatchian Mountains where the Sources of that
3	“Status novus” is believed to express the situation more accurately than the more
frequently used “combinatio nova.”
4	Britton, Mem. Torr. Bot. Club 2: 28, footnote. 1890; Small, Flora Southeastern
U. S. 439. 1903.
5	Pursh, Flora Amer. Sept. 2: 736. 1814.
. * Small, loc. cit.
7 Catesby, Nat. Hist. Carolina, etc. 1: v. 1731.
Herbarium of The New York Botanical Garden
—C. !evr>a^	ft____________________________
NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
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