Stems herbaceous, ascending to erect, not climbing, 0.6-1.5 m. Leaf blade pinnately 5-9-foliolate; leaflets lanceolate to ovate, 3-9 × 0.8-4 cm, margins entire; surfaces glabrous. Inflorescences axillary and terminal, many-flowered cymes and panicles. Flowers bisexual; pedicel 8-20 mm, slender; sepals wide-spreading, not recurved, white, oblanceolate to oblong, 8-20 mm, length ca. 4 times width, margins tomentose, otherwise glabrous; stamens 20-50; filaments glabrous; staminodes absent; pistils 8-25. Achenes broad, flat, conspicuously rimmed, glabrous; beak 1.2-2 cm.

Flowering summer (Jun-Jul). Old fields and thickets; 0-100 m; introduced; Ont.; N.Y.; native of Eurasia.

Clematis recta should probably be expected elsewhere.