Wild Flowers of Magog Down

Traveller’s Joy or Old Man’s Beard - Clematis vitalba

Motorists pausing for a break in the lay-by opposite Wandlebury may find their spirits lifted by the sight of this plant festooning the boundary fence of Magog Down. A member of the Buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), it is one of the most characteristic plants of chalky soils in southern Britain. It is commonly found scrambling over hedgerows and thickets by means of its long leaf stalks which twine around twigs and small branches. In summer it bears panicles of greenish-white, vanilla-scented flowers about 2 cm in diameter. Each flower has a calyx of four, greenish-white sepals (there are no true petals) surrounding a small forest of stamens and a central cluster of carpels. The flowers produce no nectar but are pollinated by pollen-collecting bees and pollen eating flies. Once fertilisation has occurred, the carpels develop into small, one seeded fruit with long feathery styles (hence “old man’s beard”) which persist well into winter and help to disperse the seeds. Gilbert White noted them in November 1788 “driving before a gale” and appearing “like insects on the wing”. Lengths of dried winter stems have been used in place of cigarettes (hence the colloquial name: “boy’s bacca”), but if you are thinking that it might prove a safe alternative to real tobacco, be warned that Clematis vitalba does have some very unpleasant properties. Bruised leaves and flowers, for example, will inflame the skin and irritate the eyes and throat causing copious tears and coughing. The plant has, nevertheless, been used medicinally for the treatment of ulcerative conditions and in homeopathic treatment of eye infections. The name “traveller’s joy” was given by the 16th century herbalist Gerard, who wrote of it “making a goodly show” in every hedgerow from Gravesend to Canterbury. But if, rather than a travelling herbalist, you had been a farm worker tackling an overgrown hedge with a billhook, you might have found that the tough, woody stems twining round every bush and tree induced emotions far removed from joy! Indeed you might have been more disposed to use yet another of the plant’s colloquial names "devils guts”!

David Yarham November 2000

Traveller's Joy or Old Man's Beard : Magog Down, 1999

© 2006 The Magog Trust Photographs © 2006 L.E. and The Magog Trust