Book  (1926)  Page(s) 78-9.  Includes photo(s).
 
CROWFOOT FAMILY (Ranunculaceae)
Flowers purplish, solitary, nodding, of 4 petal-like sepals. Petals none. Stamens many. Fruit an achene with feathery tail. DWARF CLEMATIS and LEATHER FLOWER (Genus Viorna (Clematis) )
The crowfoot family is less common in Florida than in northern states, where it is abundantly represented by buttercups, anemones, hepaticas, and other plants. Its most noticeable members here are species of clematis, whose flowers are followed by exaggeratedly plumy seedheads. The corolla is lacking, but the calyx is colored and petal-like, though usually thick in texture. Many stamens and pistils fill the interior of the flower, but, instead of uniting to form a seedpod, each pistil ripens by itself, enclosing a solitary seed in its base, and in creasing in length until it becomes a feathery gray plume, one to four inches long, and marvelously adapted for carrying the seed on an aerial voyage to new fields.
The dwarf clematis, V. Baldwinii, is an attractive winter flower of pinelands, and continues to bloom more or less throughout the year. The fruiting-heads, like feathery gray pinwheels, are interesting, and so are the leaves, since they do not follow a uniform pattern but show diversity in form, the lower leaves being entire, and the upper variously cleft. [...]
The local name of pine hyacinth, given to the dwarf clematis, shows as much imaginative genius as does the Florida custom of calling the large land-turtles "gophers," and the equally bizarre usage that names our true gophers "salamanders," yet as the name hyacinth holds memories of beauty it is not altogether inappropriate.
Viorna Baldwinii. Dwarf clematis. Pine hyacinth. Bells. Flowers bluish purple or pinkish, 1 in. long, bell-shaped, of 4 thick sepals, solitary, terminating stems. Plants 10-18 in. tall, sparingly branched. Leaves opposite, entire or cleft, 1-4 in. long. Pinelands. Blooming chiefly in winter and spring. Fla.

Magazine  (31 Dec 1918)  Page(s) 73-4.  Includes photo(s).
 
Viorna Baldwinii 
Pine-hyacinth
Native of peninsular Florida Family Ranunculaceæ
Crowfoot Family
Clematis Baldwinii T. & G. Fl. N. Am. 1: 8. 1838.
Viorna Baldwinii Small, Fl. SE. U. S. 439. 1903.
A perennial with a cluster of tough-succulent cord-like roots at the base of a hard simple or branched caudex. The stems are solitary or several together, angled or ultimately channeled, finely pubescent, at least when young, sparingly leafy, and simple or in the case of robust plants sometimes somewhat branched. The leaves are opposite, in few pairs, distant or sometimes approximate on the branches. The blades are various, either entire throughout the plant or entire on the lower part of the stem and lobed above; those of the lower leaves relatively shorter and broader than those of the upper, ovate, oval, elliptic, or lanceolate, half an inch to two inches long, obtuse or mucronate; those of the upper ones lanceolate, elliptic-lanceolate, or linear, or palmately or pinnately lobed and with narrow divisions; all of them more or less pubescent beneath, at least when young, or sometimes glabrous, sparingly veined with the veins united in intramarginal loops, and sessile or with short margined petioles.  The pedicels or flower-stalks are elongate, erect, similar to the stem but more slender and more pubescent, usually copiously pubescent below the flower, the hairs white or whitish, short, crisped.  The flower is solitary at the end of each pedicel, nodding.  The calyx is campanulate, about an inch long, deep lavender and shining without, pale-lavender or whitish within, more or less swollen at the base; the sepals are sometimes faintly lined, with the spreading or recurved margins thin and crisped, often sparingly pubescent without, tomentulose within in a line along the margins.  The corolla is wanting.  The stamens are numerous, erect, borne on a receptacle just within the whorl of sepals; the filaments are filiform, but slightly flattened, sparingly villous except near the base; the anthers are linear, glabrous, decidedly shorter than the filaments, abruptly and minutely tipped at the apex. The carpels are numerous, crowded on a hemispheric receptacle, elongate; the ovary is ovoid and densely clothed with long sliky appressed hairs ; the style is filiform, densely clothed with and hidden in the long silky hairs which are loosely appressed on the lower part and closely appressed on the upper. The stigma is introrse, slightly recurved at the apex. The achenes are borne in an erect plume-like head; their bodies are ovoid, fully one sixth of an inch wide, loosely appressed-pubescent, brown, each terminating in the slenderly elongated style which is conspicuously plumose by lax sordid hairs.
The clematis-relative here described and figured represents one of the more interesting plants discovered during a period of exploration in Florida subsequent to that represented by the Bartrams. It was apparently first detected by William Baldwin, a surgeon in the United States Navy, about the end of the first decade of the last century, perhaps shortly before he was recalled to active service in the war of 1812 with Great Britain. It seems strange that Bartram did not observe this plant or at least mention it in his "Travels" if he had met with it in the field, and it is still stranger that Baldwin, who did collect it, did not refer to it in his published letters,* for, if it is not a conspicuous plant with a showy flower, it is at least attractive, and unique in the flora of Florida.
Either in flower or in fruit this plant attracts the eye. In flower the nodding bell-shaped bright flowers are different from those of any of the associated plants. The calyx resembles a large hyacinth flower, whence, in connection with the plant's habitat, namely the pinewoods, the popular name, pine-hyacinth. In fruit it attracts attention by the plumes made up of the numerous long curled hairy tails of the achenes.
By means of a stout caudex and numerous tough roots the pine-hyacinth is able to survive repeated forest fires. These, occurring frequently, sometimes almost annually, apparently rather stimulate the plant which, burned off at the surface of the ground, quickly starts afresh and sends up new flowering stems with decided vigor. The forest fires, occurring at different seasons in both neighboring and distant regions, thus prolong the flowering season of the pine-hyacinth throughout the year. Individuals planted or growing naturally in some protected area only, would give the clue to the normal flowering season of this species.
The specimens from which the accompanying plate was made were collected by the writer in pinelands bordering the Everglades along the Tamiami Trail several miles west of Miami, Florida, in May, 1918.
John K. Small.
Explanation of Plate. Fig. 1.—Flowering stem. Fig. 2.—Fruit.
*Reliquiae Baldwinianae.

Book  (1840)  Page(s) 9.  
 
I. CLEMATIS. Linn.; DC. syst. 1. p.31. [...]
§ 1. Involucre none; petals none. — Clematis proper.
*Stem herbaceous, erect.
3. C.Baldwinii: erect, simple or a little branching, slender, slightly pubescent; leaves varying from oblong to linear-lanceolate, entire or 3-cleft or lobed; the lobes linear, often slightly laciniate; peduncle terminal, elongated, 1-flowered; flower cylindrical-campanulate; carpels with very long plumose tails.
Pine woods, Tampa Bay, &c. Florida, Dr. Baldwin! Dr. Hulse! — Plant 1-1½ foot high. Leaves often quite simple, 4-6 lines wide, narrowed at the base into a short petiole. Peduncle 8-10 inches long. Sepals somewhat membranaceous, woolly on the margin, purplish externally, yellowish within. Tails of the carpels 2-3 inches long.