I'm a newbie as well, and my knowledge on this subject is based only on
observations of my own Jackmanii. The first year I planted my vine, I
only had 4 petal flowers. Now in the vine's 3'rd year, it has produced
both 4 petal, and 5 petal flowers ( and it has grown tremendously since
it's first year as one scraggly looking vine, each year it comes back
MUCH fuller than before. When I first adopted my clematis I thought
maybe I would need to buy more than one plant for it to fill out the way
I had hoped...ha ha). So, my very unscientific guess would be that
age/maturity has a factor in the size of the flower/number of petals.

Heidi
7b









DigitalVinyl wrote:

I bought a Polish Spirit. The only difference I noted between a
Jackmanii and the Polish Spirit is that the Jackmanii photos always
seemed to have four petals and PS had five. I've read that J. can have
4-6. I also understand the PS is clasified as a J.

The clematis I have has over 15 flowers but all have four petals.
Is the number of petals 4 vs 5 vs 6 controlled by variety or
environmental/fertilizer. I actually prefer the fuller look of a five
or six petalled one.

Sooo... is there a variety that tends to have more petals. Is if just
a random thing? More petals when the plant is well established?


DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email)
Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound
1st Year Gardener