WISTARIA, a genus of leguminous climb ers, named in honor of Caspar Wistar, an American anatomist (1761-1818), which con tains several species, natives of China, Japan and North America. They are high-climbing, hardy shrubs, and have odd pinnate leaves, with entire leaflets and large, terminal, pendu lous racemes of papilionaceous flowers. These have large standards and wings freed from the keel, which is incurved and obtuse, and are usually purple or white. The fruits are cori aceous legumes, opening readily. Nearly all of the wistarias are cultivated for covering walls, verandas, trellises, etc. The Chinese wistaria (W. chinensii), which was introduced into England about 1816, is perhaps the best. It has profuse dense clusters of pea-shaped flowers, which are about a foot long and bloom in May before the leaves appear and occasion ally again in autumn. NVIren grown over a
trellis, the blossoms depend in great masses of blue. This vine is a rampant grower, and the flowering wood may be known by its short. jointed, antler-like growth and absence of climbing spines.
Wistaria is a favorite plant of the Japanese, who have a variety (If/. chinensie multi with racemes a yard long, loosely tloweret and with small blossoms, which arc fragrant, ow ever. This plant they train about their houses and over trellises in the greatest nrufusion. The American wistaria (W fruiescent) or kidney bean tree, is not so vigorous as the Chinese species and has slightly pubescent racemes, only about six inches long. It is found. when wild, climbing over trees at the edges of swamps from Virginia to Florida, and improves with cultivation.