Ropevine Clematis

Clematis pauciflora is a distinctive species easily identified by the small, 3-lobed leaflets, glabrous or almost glabrous leaves and stems, and large, suborbicular achenes. Intermediates between C. pauciflora and C. lasiantha are present where the two species occur together.

Stems scrambling to climbing, 2-3 m. Leaf blade 1-2-pinnate, usually 5-foliolate, sometimes proximal and lateral leaflets also 3-foliolate; leaflets ovate to lanceolate, usually 3-lobed, 1-3.5 × 0.7-3.2 cm, membranous to leathery, margins each usually with 1-3 acute to rounded teeth, rarely entire; surfaces glabrous or very sparsely silky. Inflorescences axillary, 3(-12)-flowered cymes or flowers solitary or paired. Flowers unisexual; pedicel slender, 1-3.5 cm; sepals wide-spreading, not recurved, white to cream, obovate to oblanceolate, 7-12 mm, abaxially pilose to silky, adaxially glabrous; stamens 30-50; staminodes absent or fewer than stamens; filaments glabrous; pistils 20-50. Achenes broadly ovate to nearly orbiculate, 4-4.5 × 2.5-3.5 mm, conspicuously rimmed, glabrous; beak 2.5-4 cm.

Calif.; Mexico (Baja California).

Flowering winter-fall (Jan-Oct; usually Mar-Apr).

Dry chaparral, edges of meadows and cultivated fields; 0-2200m.

Clematis pauciflora is a species of clematis known by the common name ropevine. This flowering plant is native to the high desert and chaparral slopes of southern California and Baja California. It is a woody vine with nodes every few centimeters which produce leaves and flowers. The leaves are made up of several dark green lobed leaflets, each one to three centimeters wide. From each leaf-bearing node grows an inflorescence of one to three flowers with narrow petallike sepals in shades of light yellow. Most of the flower is made up of a spray of up to 50 stamens and almost as many similar-looking pistils. The fruit is an achene equipped with a long plume-like style. The specific epithet pauciflora is Latin for 'few-flowered'.