Hi folks.
iNaturalist says that this is Clematis Occidentalis. Is that right? The petals on the
plant in my garden look wider than the pictures that I've seen of occidentalis. The
cynics among us might ask, "Does it matter?"



This is another of the plants that have inhabited my garden for a dozen years
or so. Now that I'm forgetting absolutely everything, I'm starting to put labels
on my plants. Clever, huh?
David

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Thanks, Luda, for the Wikipedia citation. I see that my clematis is not an Occidentalis. It has 8 petals and the Occi
has 4.However, your message got me more curious and I looked at the Garden Forum database and found that there
are 15,000 varieties! I flipped through the 97 pages of the clematis entries and neglected all of this morning's chores.
Luckily there were not 15,000 photos, so I didn't inspect every clematis in the universe. However, I didn't find one that
approximates my 8-petaled beauty (one possibility is something called Cezanne...nice name, but I don't think it's a
match) so it's still my anonymous clemmy. With all the varieties, I'm not as fussed about not knowing what its given
name as I was. Here's a better picture of my guy. Thanks for getting me motivated to do the research. David

Hi David,
I was in hurry when I sent you the link. You have one of the large flowered group. Pruning, probably, group 2. First I thought it was Ramona. But Ramona has more reddish center. Do you remember where you got it? How old it is? Try Lord Nevill - . I don't have this clematis and never saw it alive. It is hard to figure out blue clematis just by internet pictures. Plus people often put wrong names under their pictures. Nursery put wrong tugs on the pots and so on. Clematis on the Web is a clematis database run by International Clematis Society. They have search. You can try them as well. Good luck

In the research I did today, I saw the robertduval14 signature several times. He seems to be very active.
This Lord Nevill looks like a possibility except that it seems to have 7 petals and the petals seem to be
a little more wrinkly. You are certainly correct that the blues vary in internet pictures. I'll check the ICS,
that will help me avoid more chores!

As soon as I saw your photo I thought Clematis 'Ramona'

No idea why someone would suggest Clematis (Clematis occidentalis)

Hi Sue.
This wouldn't be the first time that iNaturalist was wrong. You are probably right in
suggesting this is Clematis Ramona. It sure looks like it. I've got two of them; one has yellowish anthers and the other has red anthers as described in the data base. I'm happy with calling it Ramona.
David.

I had to Google who or what iNaturalist is. Whoever suggested a species clematis rather than a cultivar obviously does't know that there are thousands of named cultivars, our database currently lists over 1,900. There are many more.

Sorry INaturalist is a wonderful app for identifying plants out in the woods. It probably just thought a clematis is a clematis. I went through the database (some of it) the
other day and I was astounded!

BigAppleRoseGuy said:I went through the database (some of it) the
other day and I was astounded!

Oh I get astounded too, so many plants, so little room! And that's just a partial list.