The book stated that the Clematopsis was a clematis-like perennial, growing in fertile valleys in Madagascar and parts of Africa, and that it needed a fire to have occured there in order to grow well.
Former forests are entirely disappeared replaced by immense empty areas burned annually to provide pasture for cattle. However, these vast areas are sol érodé covered by graminaceous plants (Aristida similis and A. Rufescens) and some dicotyledons with a great underground system which permit them to resist to fire. Within these field of graminaceous plants, some flowers of Catharanthus, Tachyadenus or Clematopsis can be found.
Years later, I saw some seed for sale at a garden club I was doing a talk for, in the suburbs of Vancouver, B.C. Who knows how these seeds got there? No one in the room owned up to donating the seeds either, and I have never found their true origin. Are they Clematopsis at all?
One place I have always wanted to visit is Madagascar. With it's disappearing rainforests and wandering Lemurs. Picture yourself a tropical rainforest and you will likely picture exactly what I am picturing -- a moss- and orchid-covered trunk, an exotic insect passing by, a swath of large and lush ferny leaves, the sound of screeching birds, the close, TOO close feeling of humidity the average temperate-zone dweller is not used to.
This is probably a realistic vision of what is left of the rainforests there. News of destruction by fire, the charcoal industry, Eucalyptus plantations and rapidly spreading off-island flora (such as the poinsettia) brings me to the conclusion that I am too late to see what I want to see.
However, all this destruction has led to a new ecosystem capable of supporting different plants and animals. For one thing, a former forest, with it's disturbed and eroding soil, is the perfect place for a clematopsis. Many seeds from the African and Madagascar plateau areas will not germinate properly unless they are given what horticulturists call 'smoke water'. This special juice simulates soil high in carbon content, or that of a recently burned bush.
Several years later, the plants I grew from those seeds are doing well, but I have not discovered much more about them, other than that they are pretty, and come from a threatened land.
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