Family: Fabaceae
Species: Wisteria sinensis (Sims) DC.
Common name: Glicine - English: Chinese Wisteria - Deutsch: Chinesischer Blauregen
Etymology
The genus name is dedicated to Dr Caspar Wistar, an active promoter of science and a friend of Thomas Nuttel, the author of the genus. The specific epithet derives from “Sínae,” meaning China, indicating the species' origin.
Description
This climbing shrub has robust roots and ascending stems that, with age, become knotty and twisted. Depending on the support, it eventually reaches 10–20 metres in height. Small, dense wrinkles mark the bark in a brownish-grey colour, and the branches tend to twist and overlap.
The leaves are compound, deciduous, alternate, and odd-pinnate. They consist of 7 to 13 oval-elongated leaflets with an acute base and a pointed apex. The margin is entire and slightly wavy, with straight, parallel, and slightly sunken veins.
The hermaphroditic, scented flowers are borne in numerous clusters in a gradation of purple. As the cluster develops, each flower is protected by diaphanous bracts. Each flower within the inflorescence is papilionaceous in shape. The colour is not uniform, as the flag has a very light inner surface, accentuated by golden-yellow streaks near the attachment point. There are ten stamens – nine of which are fused (diadelphous) and one free; from the wrapped pistil, only the stigma emerges in the shape of a pinhead.
The fruits are flattened legumes, brown in colour and velvety. They contain disc-shaped seeds about 1 centimetre in diameter.
Habitat
Native to Eastern Asia.
Properties and Uses
Wisteria flowers, like those of Robinia, are edible and very tasty. They make excellent sweet fritters.
Notes and Curiosities
Plants belonging to this genus are commonly called Wisteria because they were initially attributed to the same genus as Soya (Glycine).
Curiously, while in the Chinese species (Wisteria sinensis), the stems twist in a counterclockwise direction, in the Japanese ones (e.g., Wisteria floribunda), they twist clockwise. This is because all climbers native to the Northern Hemisphere twist counterclockwise, while those native to the Southern Hemisphere twist clockwise. However, Japan is located in the Northern Hemisphere between the 30th and 45th parallels, so why do Japanese wisteria twist clockwise? A few million years ago, Japan was in the Southern Hemisphere, then gradually migrated northwards at a rate of a few centimetres per year through tropical and subtropical zones until now in a temperate region. A genetic imprint of a clockwise twist remains in Japanese wisteria even after a long period in the north.
Perhaps the most famous example of Wisteria floribunda was planted (and immortalised) by Monet in his garden at Giverny.
The first wisteria arrived in Europe in 1816. It was brought by an Englishman, Captain Welbank, who, one evening in May 1816, dined with a wealthy merchant from Guangzhou (Canton). The dinner occurred under a pergola of flowering wisteria, a plant the Chinese call Zi Teng ("Blue Vine").
No European had ever seen such a sight before, and Captain Welbank obtained some seedlings as a gift for his friend C. H. Turner in Rooksnet, Surrey. Three years later, in 1819, this garden flowered for the first time and quickly spread to all the gardens of the old continent. In Italy, records of its existence date back to around 1840. The botanist Nuttal did not immediately realise that the plant had been classified for a century as Wistaria in honour of a German anatomy professor and anthropologist, Kaspar Wistar. However, this name, when pronounced in English, became distorted into Wisteria, and the name rapidly spread across European gardens; eventually, despite recognising the mistake, the name Wisteria became common usage.
In the Heller Botanical Park, there is one of the most majestic Chinese wisterias. Its branches twist around their supports like lianas, and it has grown so extensively that special supports have been used to help it continue climbing other trees. Not only does it cascade purple-lilac flowers from the end of March on the otherwise bare plant, but its foliage is also captivating: during summer, its leaves range from light to dark green, and in autumn, they turn golden before drying and falling away.