Traveller's Joy (sometimes called Old Man's Beard or Virgin's Bower) is a strongly climbing perennial. The flowers consist of four greenish white sepals, usually bending back; the stamens are prominent. The leaflets are grouped in fives, the groups growing opposite each other.
The fruit are like balls of down all through the autumn and winter, and give the plant its name Old Man's Beard.
The plant grows by its twisting leafstalks to dramatic heights, sometimes up trees and telegraph poles, making vast festoons. It is scrub, hedge and woodland plant and likes growing on limestone. It is not native to Ireland, always a garden escape, and is scattered in the south and north of Ireland but absent from Donegal, Galway and some midland counties.
The flowers appear in July and August.
Traveller's Joy grows in the south of England, in Europe from the Netherlands southwards and in North Africa.