(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.