The specific epithet ligusticifolia for this Clematis means that the plant has leaves like Ligusticum or lovage. I used the name Levisticum for lovage and that’s correct, but for the cultivated garden variety of lovage. It was the English explorer botanist Thomas Nuttall that gave the specific epithet ligusticifolia to the plant and I suspect that he’s comparing the leaves to an American species of Ligusticum. I learned a whole lot more about this, but I’m going to save the rest of the story for another episode, because we do have a very cool native Ligusticum in the mountains of…