Whitehair Leather Flower

Description

Stems erect, not viny, 2-4(-6) dm, pubescent or pilose to ± tomentose or hirsute. Leaves simple. Leaf blade elliptic-lanceolate to ovate, unlobed, 3.5-8(-10) — 1.5-5(-6.5) cm, thin, not conspicuously reticulate; surfaces abaxially glabrous to sparsely (rarely more densely) villous on veins, not glaucous. Inflorescences terminal, flowers solitary; bracts absent. Flowers narrowly urn-shaped; sepals purplish, yellowish toward tips, oblong-lanceolate, (1.1-)1.4-3 cm, margins not expanded or less than 1 mm wide, thin, not crispate, tomentose, tips obtuse, spreading to recurved, abaxially silky- to woolly-pubescent. Achenes: bodies pilose; beak white to pale yellow, (1.5-)2-4(-4.5) cm, plumose. 2 n = 16. Flowering spring-early summer. Shale barrens; 300-800 m; Va., W.Va. Clematis albicoma is known only from shale barrens predominantly developed from the Upper Devonian Brallier Formation in nine counties of western Virginia and adjacent West Virginia.