Website/Catalog  (29 Jul 2010)  
 
Clematis virginiana L.
Fully hardy, deciduous, semi-woody climber with three, toothed or lobed leaflets and small, fragrant white flowers in many-flowered axillary panicles, to 15cm across.  [RHSD, Hortus].

Horticultural & Botanical History
Introduced to Britain in 1767.  [JD].

History at Camden Park
Listed only in the 1857 catalogue [T.325/1857].

Notes
Clematis virginiana Lour. (1790) = Clematis apiifolia DC., from Japan.

Book  (Oct 2001)  Page(s) 382-383.  Includes photo(s).

Book  (1912)  Page(s) 84.  
 
Clematis L. — N. Pff. iii. 2. 62. — Ranunculaceæ-Clematideæ.
virginiana L. — DC. i. 4; Kuntze, Mon. 102. — N. America. — ♄ §.  

Book  (1901)  Page(s) 182-3.  
 
Virginia Virgin's Bower.  Traveller's Joy.
Clématis Virginiàna.
Family Crowfoot.  Colour White.  Odour Slightly fragrant.  Range Georgia northward and westward.  Time of Bloom July, August.
Flowers: numerous; imperfect; growing loosely in leafy panicles.  Calyx: with four oblong, petal-like sepals.  Corolla: none. Stamens and pistils: very numerous.  Filaments: glabrous.  Fruit: a cluster of achenes with long, persistent feathery styles. Leaves: trifoliolate, the leaflets broadly ovate and deeply toothed and lobed. A climbing vine.
Often it is that the commonest plants are far more beautifu! than the rarities which we seek and favourably look upon simply because they are rare.  From beginning to end the existence of the virgin's bower is replete with charm.  Not only in remote haunts, but everywhere we see it running along rail fences, or covering low stone walls and shrubbery with masses of creamy tinted flowers, exhaling in great waves their faint fragrance, or tossing about the fantastic tails of its seeds.  For centuries the people have known the vine.  It has been loudly lauded and much written about.  It is the generous, luxurious child of the family.  In England, however, without discrimination, the various species are popularly called, virgin's bower.
What some writers regard as a form of this species and which is known as C. Virginiana Catesbyana, is distinguished by its pubescent leaves.

Magazine  (31 Dec 1898)  Page(s) 541.  
 
Le C. virginiana, qui dans son pays doit atteindre une hauteur plus grande encore que nos espèces indigènes, s’en distingue par ses feuilles trilobées et ses fleurs hermaphrodites plus petites, apparaissant plus tard, tandis que le C. vitalba a les feuilles cinq ou sept-lobées et les fleurs plus grandes, qui s’ouvrent en juillet et août, et sont monoïques.

Magazine  (30 Jul 1892)  Page(s) 73.  
 
C. virginiana Lin., de la Virginie; tiges de 2 m., fleurs blanches

Magazine  (1877)  Page(s) 271.  
 
Clematis Virginiana (Lin.); Amérique septentrionale; blanc.

Website/Catalog  (1875)  Page(s) 79.  
 
CLEMATIS. Virgin's Bower.  Waldrebe, Ger. Clematite, Fr.
The Clematis are elegant, slender branched shrubs, of rapid growth, handsome foliage and beautiful large flowers of all colors.  The newer varieties introduced within the last five or six years are great acquisitions.  Either in the open ground as pillar plants, bedding plants, single plants in masses or about rock-work, or cultivated in pots or tubs, the Clematis cannot be excelled.
We append the following from the English "Gardener." Jackman's Clematises: "They are magnificent; and more than this, they do give us some of the grandest things in the way of creepers the horticultural world has ever seen, making glorious ornaments either for walls, verandahs, or rustic poles or pillars, varying in color from deep rich violet hue to dark velvety maroon, and in the newer seedling forms, beautiful shades of pale bright blue."
They will stand the severest Winters if the roots are slightly covered.
Class II. Varieties Flowering in the Spring and Early Summer, on the Old or Ripened Wood.
C. Virginiana.  American White Clematis.  A remarkably rapid climbing plant, growing to the height of 20 feet, producing an immense profusion of flowers in August.

Book  (1872)  Page(s) 152.  
 
C. VIRGINIANA, Linnæus.—A free-growing scram bling climber, growing from twelve to eighteen feet in height, with the general aspect of C. Vitalba. It has ternate leaves, with cordate acute toothed leaflets, and small whitish fragrant summer flowers, borne in panicles. It is a North American species, better suited for planting as a screen, than for the sake of its unattractive blossoms.

Magazine  (1868)  Page(s) 298.  
 
LES SQUARES ET LES MARCHÉS DE PARIS.
PAR M. Delchevalerie ,
Chef de culture au fleuriste de Paris. août 1868.
.... On remarque aussi en ce moment plusieurs Clématites en fleurs d'un très-bel effet dans les jardins : ce sont la Clématite bicolore Clematis bicolor DC.; la C. bleue odorante, C. cœrulea odorata Hort. ; la C. crispée, C. crispa Lin.; la C. cylindrique, C. cylindrica Sims; la C. blanche odorante, C. flammula Lin. ; la C. à grande fleur, C. florida Thunb. ; la C. à grande fleur double, C. florida fl. pleno Sieb. ; la C. laineuse, C. lanuginosa ; la C. de Virginie, C. virginiana Lin. ; la Cl. des haies, C. vitalba Lin. ; la C. à fleur bleue, C. cœrulea Lin. ; les variétés à grande fleur double bleue, pourpre, violette, etc.