Flower Garden Lovers

The Wild Flower Garden Holds a Virgin's Bower

The Western Blue Virginsbower, or Clematis occidentalis as it is more scientifically known today, is a native American wildflower. If you could find this lovely purplish wild flower for your wild flower garden, it would be a truly lovely addition. There are 3 different varieties of the Virgin's Bower according to the USDA Plants Database. One is mostly in the northeastern US as described below in our compendium entry.

However, this is a wild flower definitely in trouble in the wild. It is considered in danger, of special concern or even presumed extirpated in several states. One source even claimed it could only be found in West Virginia at this time. One presumes this means the eastern US variety, occidentalis. Yes, that variety has the same name as the species name.

PURPLE VIRGIN'S BOWER
(Atragene Americana) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Showy, purplish blue, about 3 in. across; 4 sepals, broadly expanded, thin, translucent, strongly veined, very large, simulating petals; petals small, spoon-shaped; stamens very numerous ; styles long, persistent, plumed throughout.

Stem: Trailing or partly climbing with the help of leafstalks and leaflets.

Leaves: Opposite, compounded of 3 egg-shaped, pointed leaflets on slender petioles.

Preferred Habitat - - Rocky woodlands.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - Hudson Bay westward, south to Minnesota and Virginia.

The day on which one finds this rare and beautiful flower in some rocky ravine high among the hills or mountains becomes memorable to the budding botanist. At an elevation of three thousand feet in the Catskills it trails its way over the rocks, fallen trees, and undergrowth of the forest, suggesting some of the handsome Japanese species introduced by Sieboldt and Fortune to Occidental gardens. No one who sees this broadly expanded blossom could confuse it either with the thick and bell-shaped purple LEATHER-FLOWER (C. Viorna), so exquisitely feathery in fruit, that grows in rich, moist soil from Pennsylvania southward and westward; or with the far more graceful and deliciously fragrant purple MARSH CLEMATIS (C. crispa) of our Southern States. The latter, though bell-shaped also, has thin, recurved sepals, and its persistent styles are silky, not feathery at seed-time.

Not only would this wildflower make a beautiful addition to a rocky shaded area of your wild flower garden, but it has some supposed medicinal purposes as well. Several Native American tribes have used it in some form or other to treat everything from sweaty feet to a lotion for swollen knees to a teatment to prevent gray hair. The seed floss was used as fire tinder. (This information was gleaned from the Plant-Life.org website.) I even found a website offering a tincture of the wildflower as a treatment for headaches, cluster headaches and migraines.

As we have warned before, do not attempt to remove this wild flower from the wild for your wild flower garden. As noted above, it is already in serious trouble in the wild. Please try to find a responsible seedsman to provide the plant and/or seed for planting in your wild flower garden. If you are lucky enough to find such a source, please share it by sending an email and we will post it in this article recognizing you as the source of the information. Our email address is sandra AT flowergardenlovers.com. If you cannot find a source, you can still browse our Garden Supply pages for some lovely additions to your flower garden.

© 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson

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© 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson. Find more articles about a Wild Flower Garden at our informative website, Flower Garden Lovers.
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