Old man’s beard, Clematis vitalba.
Old man’s beard or Traveller’s joy is a climbing shrub of the Clematis family with branched, grooved stems, deciduous leaves, and scented greeny-white flowers with fluffy underlying sepals which give the beard effect which recalls Father Christmas’s beard in December. It’s not particularly popular with insects and needs to be controlled or it will smother whole trees and areas of ground.
