86 SOME AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANISTS 



slightest doubt of this fact, although the same 

 honor has been claimed in favor of the late 

 Charles J. Wister (notWistar) of Germantown, 

 who, with Dr. Wistar, was also a personal friend 

 of Thomas Nuttall, the distinguished botanist, 

 and no mean botanist himself. Dr. Caspar Wis- 

 tar and Charles J. Wister were relatives, de- 

 scended from a common ancestor in the Palati- 

 nate, near Heidelberg, Germany. The books, so 

 far as I have seen, seem to credit Nuttall with 

 naming the new genus Wisteria — its many vari- 

 eties or species making it quite distinct from the 

 genus Glycinae, with which it was formerly clas- 

 sified. But it is a very fixed and positive tradition 

 in our family that the famous Abbe Correa da 

 Serra gave the name Wistaria to this beautiful 

 climber in honor of his friend Dr. Wistar. So I 

 have always heard it stated in the family as a 

 fixed fact, without doubt or question, by my 

 father and several uncles and aunts long since 

 dead, and others, all of whom were contem- 

 poraries and ardent admirers of Dr. Wistar, and 

 all persons of the highest reputation for intelli- 

 gence, truth and probity; yet I have nothing to 

 prove it — no letters or documentary evidence — 

 and it is now rather late in the day to find such 

 corroboration. Our family — the Wistars — have 

 been justly criticised for their seeming indiffer- 

 ence or lack of active interest in this matter; but 



