Clematis villosaDC.

WFO wfo-0000610865 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Clematis villosa, photographed by Antoinette Eyssell Knox
fig. a Antoinette Eyssell Knox, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2014-01-27 / obs. 15418527
Clematis villosa, photographed by Nicola van Berkel
fig. b Nicola van Berkel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15138649
Clematis villosa, photographed by M Kriek
fig. c M Kriek, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15383969
Clematis villosa, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. d Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 73298856
Clematis villosa, photographed by Dave Richardson
fig. e Dave Richardson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61551703
Clematis villosa, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. f Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 59492563
Clematis villosa, photographed by Tam
fig. g Tam, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 14467534
Clematis villosa, photographed by Nicola van Berkel
fig. h Nicola van Berkel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15159379

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 18 botanical countries

Regions where Clematis villosa is native: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, DR Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Rwanda, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBotswanaBurundiCameroonCentral African RepublicCongoDR CongoMalawiMozambiqueNamibiaNigeriaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Clematis villosa, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Angola ANG AFRICA
Botswana BOT
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Central African Republic CAF
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Rwanda RWA
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 46 in flower of 70 examined

Peak flowering in Dec. Each bar is the share of Clematis villosa observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 46 of 70 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 39 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Clematis argentea (Kuntze) Prantl
  • Clematis argentea Welw. ex Hutch.
  • Clematis busseana Engl.
  • Clematis goetzei Engl.
  • Clematis kirkii Oliv.
  • Clematis lugnignu De Wild.
  • Clematis mechowiana Kuntze
  • Clematis sapinii De Wild.
  • Clematis scabiosifolia DC.
  • Clematis stanleyi Hook.
  • Clematis stanleyi var. pubescens (Kuntze) T.Durand & Schinz
  • Clematis stanleyi var. tomentosa (Kuntze) T.Durand & Schinz
  • Clematis stuhlmannii Hieron.
  • Clematis villosa f. acutiloba Welw. ex Hiern
  • Clematis villosa f. obtusiloba Hiern
  • Clematis villosa f. stenophylla Hiern
  • Clematis villosa subsp. argentea Kuntze
  • Clematis villosa subsp. schinziana Kuntze
  • Clematis villosa subsp. villosa
  • Clematis villosa var. hirsuta Kuntze
  • Clematis villosa var. kirkii (Oliv.) Kuntze
  • Clematis villosa var. pubescens Kuntze
  • Clematis villosa var. scabiosifolia (DC.) Kuntze
  • Clematis villosa var. tomentosa Kuntze

and 15 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.