Clematis virginiana
species of plant
Clematis virginiana (also known as devil's darning needles, devil's hair, love vine, traveller's joy, virgin's bower, Virginia virgin's bower, wild hops, and woodbine; syn. Clematis virginiana L. var. missouriensis (Rydb.) Palmer & Steyermark ) is a vine of the Ranunculaceae (buttercup family) native to North America from Newfoundland to southern Manitoba down to the Gulf of Mexico. The rationale for some of the common names is unclear, as they include examples normally applied to unrelated plants, including twining parasites (e.g. "devil's hair" for Cuscuta). The name "Love Vine" also is applied to alleged aphrodisiacs, such as Caribbean species of Cassytha, which are unrelated to Clematis, not being in the family Ranunculaceae.
Description
This plant is an aggressively growing vine which can climb to heights of 3–6 m (10–20 ft) by twisting leafstalks. The leaves are opposite and pinnately compound, trifoliate (3 leaflets) that have coarse unequal teeth on the margins. It produces small dull white flowers of width 13 to 19 mm (1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in) from July to September that are faintly sweetly fragrant; sometimes dioecious so that there is separate staminate (male) and pistillate (female) plants. The male plants are a little showier in flower and don't bear seed.
“Clematis virginiana” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Clematis, virginiana and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Clematis virginiana” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Clematis, virginiana and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4266308. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Clematis virginiana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.