Clematis vitalba L.
Eng.: Evergreen clematis, traveller’s-joy. Spa.: Clemátide, vidalba, vidarra, muermera. Fre.: Clématite vigne-blanche, clématite des haies.
Climbing plant, deciduous, hermaphrodite, that can climb up to 5 m or even further if climbing on trees or anything else that serves as support. Stems woody, sarmentose, with greyish-brown bark that peels into longitudinal strips. Branches green, glabrous, though somewhat villous when young. Leaves opposite, simply imparipinnate, with 3 to 7 leaflets (5-10 cm long), ovate or ovate-lanceolate, with a rounded or cordate base, margin entire or with thick teeth or lobes. Rachis begins to curl as soon as it touches anything, thus enabling the plant to extend. Flowers (18-25 mm diameter) grouped on a long peduncle born at the leaf axils, white, pubescent. Flowers with only one whorl composed of 4-5 petaloid parts, elongated (6-13 mm), pubescent, white, fully extended in a star shape or slightly curved backward. Stamens numerous and showy, white. Fruits or achenes (2.5-5 mm) slightly compressed, oval, slightly pubescent and prolonged by a feathery style up to 5.5 cm.
Flowering:
May to July.
Fruiting:
In autumn.
Habitat:
Forests, thickets and rocky outcrops in fresh and subhumid climates, low and medium altitude.
Distribution:
Mediterranean region, central and western Europe. In North Africa it is very rare, growing only in the upper, wetter and cooler parts of the Aures Massif and mounts near Batna. It has been quoted in Morocco, in the Rif (Jebel Magú) but its presence here must be confirmed.
Observations:
Another similar clematis present in the area is C. brachiata Thunb. (including what has been cited as C. hirsuta Guill. & Perr., and C. tibestica Quézel, a taxonomically complex group). It is also a coiling climbing plant up to 4 m, with stems densely thick villous even in not so young ones, but with a larger floral whorl, which reaches 19(24) × 4-7(8) mm and smaller achene feathery styles, up to 3.5(4) cm. It is a plant present in much of Africa from South Africa to the edge of the Sahel, reaching from the Atlantic in Senegal to Eritrea and Ethiopia, and is present in the Tibesti (Chad) and has been quoted in NE Sudan, near the Red Sea. In addition, it has also been mentioned (as C. hirsuta) in the S of Algeria and Libya, however its presence is unconfirmed.
Conservation status:
Rare but widely distributed species. Currently, they are not assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.