Magazine  (19 Aug 1899)  Page(s) 328.  
 
La Flore de Johannesburg (Transvaal) ... Dans de tels endroits nous rencontrons le Clematis Stanleyi, qui est sans contredit une de nos plus jolies plantes florales. Elle a un port érigé, buissonneux, atteint de 4 à 6 pieds de hauteur et meurt chaque hiver jusqu’à la surface du sol; les fleurs sont nombreuses, bleu pâle ou pourpres, d’un diamètre d’environ 21/2 pouces, donnant ensuite des semences d’une apparence aqueuse, blanc d’argent et très ornementales. Elle ne se transplante que difficilement dans un jardin ; j’ai essayé des semis, des boutures, des racines, le tout sans succès.

Magazine  (15 Apr 1891)  Page(s) 36.  
 
CLEMATIS STANLEYI W. Hook. — Ce n'est pas du tout à l'explorateur de l'Afrique que fut dédiée cette très belle espèce, nommée en l’honneur de Lord Derby par Sir W^m Hooker qui la décrivit dans les Icones Plantarum en faisant de la plante un pompeux éloge. Elle fut découverte, il y a une cinquantaine d'années, à Macalisberg, près de Natal, par Burke, collecteur de Lord Derby, et malgré cet éloge du savant botaniste, un demi siècle a dû s'écouler encore avant que l'espèce fit son apparition dans les cultures européennes, grâce à un envoi de graines faites en 1889 au Jardin de Kew par M. Galpin, de Barberton, dans le Transvaal. Des plantes provenues de ces graines ont fleuri à Kew en août dernier, tant en plein air qu’en serre. La racine est charnue; les tiges sont herbacées et disposées en touffes ; les feuilles sont bipinnatifides, à segments étroits et lancéolés ; les fleurs solitaires et terminales, quelquefois groupées en cymes par trois, inclinées sur leur pédoncule, ont cinq à sept centimètres de diamètre; les quatre segments ovales, à veines proéminentes, sont d'un beau coloris blanc lilacé, les étamines sont jaunes. La plante entière, tiges, feuilles et segments floraux, est couverte d’un fin duvet soyeux et blanchâtre. Le Gardeners Chronicle a donné en septembre dernier une figure de la fleur et du jeune feuillage. Le Clematis Stanleyi sera, sans aucun doute, une belle acquisition pour nos jardins.

Magazine  (24 Jan 1891)  Page(s) 76-77.  Includes photo(s).
 
CLEMATIS STANLEYI*
The gold fields of South Africa have yielded a considerable number of interesting garden plants during the last five years, the most striking of them being Gerbera Jamesoni, Anoiganthus brevifolius, Streptocarpus Dunni, Cyrtanthus Galpini, Anemone Fannini, and the Clematis represented in the accompanying plate. Besides these, there are at Kew seedlings of various plants which, judged by dried specimens, are likely to prove of some value in horticulture. Hitherto the attractions of the gold mines have been too great to admit of much plant collecting, the few things gathered and forwarded to England being mere oddments, picked up, as it were, by the wayside, But the vegetable riches of the Transvaal and neighbourhood are now attracting the notice of the collector and amateur with leisure, and we are therefore in a fair way to get many more of such plants as those above named.
Clematis Stanleyi is by far the handsomest of the eight species of this genus which are natives of Africa. It was discovered about fifty years ago by Burke, a collector employed by Lord Derby, after whom it was named by Sir William Hooker, who published a figure of it in the '" Icones Phntarum," t. 589. At that time it was declared to be " the handsomest species of an extensive and handsome genus," and although it cannot be placed first amongst those known to-day, yet it is decidedly an ornamental plant, with very considerable capabilities. It was introduced into cultivation through Kew, by means of seeds forwarded by Mr. E. Galpin, of Barberton, in April, 1889. Mr. Galpin wrote : "The best of all in the present sending is the Clematis. It is a shrub, not scandent, about 3 feet high, with deeply-cut, silky leaves, something like one of our wild Pelargoniums, with large pale purple flowers, the stamens bright yellow. The fruit when ripe is a beautiful object, as elegant as a bunch of ostrich feathers, and silvery white. At first I thought it was an Anemone. It is a very ornamental plant, and may, by crossing it with the garden Clematises, produce a new race." Mr. Galpin also stated that, from the high altitude at which he had found this species, he thought it might prove to be hardy in England. In the winter of 1889-90, a batch of plants left outside at Kew to test their hardiness all perished. At the present time thire are about fifty of them in a border, where they are protected by a covering of leaves and Spruce branches. Before they were covered they had experienced about 8° of frost, and whilst most of them had their foliage nipped a few were uninjured. The best plants are in a cool greenhouse, where planted out in a raised border they grew to a height of from 2 feet to 3 feet, and flowered freely last summer. These plants have ripened plenty of seeds. Considerable variation was apparent in the plants at Kew both in leaf and flower. All the leaves were bipinnate, but whilst the ultimate divisions in some were as fine as in Milfoil, in others they were large. Again, some were covered with silky white hairs, which give them the silvery appearance of the Silver Tree (Leucodendron), whilst in others the leaves, although hairy, were green. The flowers varied in size from 1½ inches in diameter to twice that size; they were at first cupped, and finally became almost flat by the spreading of the sepals. The colour varied from a rich puce to rose and almost pure white. Each flower remained fresh on the plant about a fortnight. The roots are fleshy, as in the common Clematis, and last year the whole of the plants died down to the base, springing up again vigorously in the spring. The flowers are axillary, and I have seen six good flowers all open together upon the same branch. Each shoot is terminated by a flower, but a succession of shoots springs up from the base The fruit is as "elegant as that of the common Traveller's Joy.
C. Stanleyi appears to be common in the higher altitudes of Eastern Africa, and a species very similar to it is found in Madagascar. Its nearest allies are C. Kirki and C. chrysocarpa, both African plants, and both with large fleshy flowers. W.W.

* Drawn for The Garden in the Royal Gardens, Kew, by H. G. Moon, Sept. 19, 1890. Lithographed and printed by Guillaume Severeyns.

Magazine  (20 Sep 1890)  Page(s) 326-327.  Includes photo(s).
 
CLEMATIS STANLEYI
This plant was first discovered about fifty years ago by the collector, Burke, in Macalisberg, near Natal, whilst collecting for Lord Derby, in compliment to whom the species was named as above by Sir William Hooker, who figured and described it from dried specimens in the Icones Plantarum, t. 589. It is there stated to be " the handsomest species of an extensive and handsome genus," and that it " forms a shrub apparently several feet high, everywhere clothed with silky tomentum, so as to have a good deal the appearance of the silky variety of the North American Anemone patens. The flowers are as large as those of our Corn-Poppy, and, judging from the dried specimens, purple." Notwithstanding this glowing description, the plant does not appear to have ever been introduced into cultivation, until last year, when Mr. Galpin, of Barberton in the Transvaal, sent to Kew a packet of seeds with the following description; — "These seeds come from Johannesburg, and they belong to a shrubby Clematis not more than 3 feet high, with deeply cut silky leaves and large pinkish or pale purple flowers. The fruit when ripe is a beautiful object, as elegant as a bunch of ostrich feathers, and silvery-white. At first I thought it was an Anemone. It is a very ornamental plant, and may, by crossing it with the garden Clematis, produce a new race."
Plants raised from these seeds have lately been in flower both in a sunny greenhouse and in an open border at Kew (see fig. 63, p. 327). They have fleshy roots, tufted herbaceous stems and opposite, at times alternate leaves. These are from 6 to 9 inches long, about half as much wide, bipinnate, the pinna; varying in size and in lobing on different plants. The flowers are axillary on the upper part of the stems, and the peduncles are 6 inches long, with a pair of leaf-like bracts two-thirds up, from which sometimes other flowers are developed. The flowers are nodding, fleshy, cupped, about 2½ inches across ; the segments nearly round, with prominent veins. The colour varies from blush-white to dull rose-purple, with yellow stamens. The whole plant flowers, and all is covered with a soft silky down. The Kew plants are fruiting freely, but the fruit is not yet ripe. It is possible that, by cultivation and selection, or by crossing, as suggested by Mr. Gilpin, we may obtain from this Clematis a useful race of garden plants. As it is, there is plenty to attract in the elegance and silky look of the foliage, and in the flowers of some of the varieties, whilst there is still the fruit. Some plants placed outside at Kew last year, and left to test their hardiness, were killed by the frost. The stems die to the ground every winter. W. W.