Old man’s beard

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Image 100 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.

These are the seeds of Clematis vitalba or ‘Old Man’s Beard’. This plant grows abundantly in Cotswold hedgerows, tolerating the limey soils in the region. In the summertime it doesn’t stand out, but if you know what to look for you can see its characteristic leaves and its stems winding through hedgerow plants and the lower branches of trees. The flowers are quite insignificant too, unlike the Clematis in garden centres, bred for large and showy flowers.

But wild Clematis comes into its own in the autumn; the seeds are hairy, as you can see, enabling them to blow away in the wind. If they land in a suitable spot they will germinate, put out a shoot with leaves, and try to find some support to climb up. But the seeds are not released until spring, and all winter long, these white ‘beards’ can be seen in Cotswold hedges, adding a touch of interest in an otherwise rather drab time of year.

The colourful garden Clematis cultivars were once propagated by grafting onto the wild seedlings as they were not easy to root as cuttings. But these days cuttings are the norm; with modern rooting hormones and high humidity conditions they root and grow very well indeed.

See also:

• Clematis vitalba – Wikipedia

When: 19th January 2024
Where: Near Stratton, Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Favourites

For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:

Anemone, Cloud, Honeybee, Hydrangea, Kiftsgate1, Kiftsgate2, Large White, Mugshot, Nelson, Robin, Rose, Spilhaus, Sunset1, Weston beach

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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