Like many members of that genus, its hybrids are prized by gardeners for their showy flowers.

It is endemic to Zhejiang province in eastern China[1] and was first discovered near Ningbo by the plant hunter Robert Fortune in 1850 who sent plants back to England.

It was lost to cultivation at about the time of the first world war and thought to be extinct but was rediscovered growing in the same area in 2008.

In the US it grows best in American Horticultural Society zones 9 to 1,[3] which covers much of the US.

As C. lanuginosa and hybrids derived from it have been used extensively in the breeding of new large flowered Clematis cultivars,[5] this susceptibility to the disease has been passed to many Clematis commonly grown in gardens.