A charming herbaceous species, Clematis coactilys can be found on the Rock Garden.
Belonging to the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), the genus Clematis contains over 200 species of climbers, shrubs and herbaceous perennials, found in Europe, Asia, Australasia, North America and Central America. In addition there are many hundreds of cultivars of mainly large-flowered climbers popular in cultivation. They are diverse in leaf shape, ranging from entire, to tri-palmate and bi-pinnate, and are also diverse in sepal numbers (varying from 4 to 10), and in flower shape, with flowers including saucer-shaped, star-shaped, bell-shaped, tulip-shaped and tubular. Clematis coactilys is an herbaceous species reaching 60cm in height, and having entire leaves, usually 4 recurved sepals, and tubular, bell-shaped flowers. All parts of this species are covered in down. A native of the Appalachian mountains of north-east America, C. coactilys occurs in steep, rocky sites amongst scrubby oaks and pines.