This hybrid is a small, evergreen creeper, with attractive, lightly scented, pink-blushed flowers, created from a cross between the climber, Clematis brachiata, and the shrublet, C. villosa, which until recently was called Clematopsis scabiosifolia. Up until now, this hybrid was simply referred to as Clematis x Clematopsis.

In order to understand ‘Silver Beard’ it is useful to look at both parents distinguishing characteristics.

Clematis villosa (= Clematopsis scabiosifolia), the Bush Clematis, is a tough shrublet  up to 1 m tall, with annual aromatic stem shoots covered in silvery hairs, originating from a woody rootstock. Its leaves are compound and are quite variable in shape. It bears numerous large, nodding and drooping, solitary, creamy white, mauve or pale pink, sweetly scented, hellebore-like flowers in summer (December to March) followed by the characteristic decorative, upright, feathery fruiting heads so much associated with this plant and that of its relative, the other parent of this cross.

Clematopsis brachiata, known as Traveler’s Joy and Old Man’s Beard, is a deciduous climber or scrambler, with slender, twining woody stems, that can reach 5 m long, with well-spaced, opposite, pinnately lobed leaves, tapering to narrow tips. It bears masses of smallish, sweetly-scented, creamy white flowers in late summer and autumn (February to May). These are so numerous, that they create a snowy effect. The flowers are followed by seed heads that persist on the plant, until well after mid-winter. The decorative fluffy effect of the seed clusters are formed by the long, graceful, feathery persistent styles attached to each seed.

Saunders (1995) explains how this hybrid came about: “Clematis and Clematopsis flower at the same time of year and at one stage I had them growing side by side in the nursery at Kirstenbosch. Feeling meddlesome I crossed the two species by hand”. Rodney goes on to describe how he selected Clematis brachiata as the seed parent, and the seed that was sown from this cross yielded seedlings that were obviously hybrids, as they had the vigour and speed of Clematis brachiata combined with the foliage and compactness of Clematis villosa (= Clematopsis scabiosifolia). The flowers are slightly smaller than Clematis villosa (= Clematopsis scabiosifolia) but have the mauve-pink colouring and nodding habit of this parent plant, while being borne in clusters of multiple flowerheads with a floriferousness more characteristic of Clematis brachiata. ‘Silver Beard’ is a lovely combination of the best features of both its parents.

‘Silver Beard’ has numerous delicate, lightly wooded stems arising from a central woody rootstock, which scramble, twine and mound together very attractively if left to do so, never extending much further than 3 m in any direction. The young stems are pale green, softly hairy and ribbed.

The light-green softly hairy foliage consists of well-spaced, opposite, pinnately compound leaves which are deeply divided into 5, ovate leaflets, each with their margins irregularly and/or deeply toothed. The foliage of Clematis villosa (= Clematopsis scabiosifolia) is very aromatic, but unfortunately ‘Silver Beard’ seems to have lost this characteristic – luckily it has retained a lightly sweet flower scent from both its strongly fragranced parents.

The cyme inflorescence stalks are lightly hairy and extend to raise the 3–5 flowers they carry, to stand just above the foliage, adding to the showiness of the plant when in flower. Flowers are beautiful, also light hairy, nodding prettily with 4 petal-like sepals, blushed pink to mauve and spreading to showcase a profusion of bright yellow anthers. The true petals are absent.

The fruit is an aggregation of greenish brown, plump achenes. These small seeds have persistent slender feathery styles, up to 40 mm long, covered in long, silvery white, silky hairs that glow with a silvery shimmer in the sunlight.