YOUR WISTERI A-J APANESE OR CHINESE? 
IS somewhat remarkable that, although the Wisteria 
has long been one of the most familiar of flowering 
vines, yet there has been a confusion of identities that 
was cleared up but very recently, as one of the results 
of Mr. E. H. Wilson’s expeditions to China and Japan for the 
Arnold Arboretum. At least two totally different, cultivated 
Asiatic species have been adorning our porches and trellises 
and have been accepted as being but one and the same. The 
Chinese Wisteria, as it is called, and the Silky Wisteria are 
much alike to the casual observer, although the former has 
decidedly the longer flower raceme. The Silky Wisteria has 
shorter racemes, and broader, and is definitely distinguished by 
having short, velvety hairs on the mature leaves. Both are 
velvety when young. The Japanese Wisteria is the more 
fragrant and blooms later than the Chinese; also its flowers are 
smaller and more laxly disposed on the cluster. 
These observations and the general descriptions which follow, 
taken (with only a few textual changes) from the Bulletin of the 
Arnold Arboretum, should enable any one to identify any par- 
ticular Wisteria vine. There are several other trade names for 
slight varietal forms, but they are immaterial in this connection. 
The answer to the question: “why doesn’t my Wisteria 
flower” may be found between the lines in this article; the buds 
are frequently winter-killed. Some plants apparently do not 
attain flowering vigor until they are very many years old, and 
there may be occasional sterile ones. 
Wisteria sinensis (Chinese Wisteria) grows naturally in cen- 
tral and southern China and is the common Wisteria in the 
gardens of the United States and one of the most vigorous of 
the hardy climbing plants of the northern hemisphere. Its ma- 
ture leaves are smooth, which distinguishes it from W. brachy- 
botrys with which it has long been confused. In New England 
country gardens the flower-buds are often killed by cold, and it 
grows better on city houses where it is more protected than in 
the country. In the southern states, where it often reaches to 
the tops of trees more than a hundred feet high, and in Cali- 
fornia it is seen in its greatest magnificence. The only variety 
of this plant which has yet been found is the white-flowered 
form, which is exceedingly rare, and a specimen would be wel- 
comed by the Arnold Arboretum. The plant offered in nur- 
series as the White Chinese Wisteria is in fact the White 
Japanese. The White Chinese one was found by Fortune in 
Chinese gardens and first flowered in England in 1849, and Wil- 
son saw occasional plants on the cliffs near lchang in central 
China. Francis Parkman’s garden at Jamaica Plain had one 
which flowered in 1880, but has now disappeared; there is said 
to have been a specimen in a Connecticut garden, and there are 
two splendid old plants in gardens in Opelousas, Louisiana. 
Wisteria venusta (Silky Wisteria) having velvety hairs on 
both sides of the leaf, is the earliest of the Wisterias to flower. 
Although it had been sent to the United States and Europe for 
several years by Japanese nurserymen, nothing was really 
known about it until Wilson’s visit to Japan in 1914, when he 
found that it was a distinct and undescribed species distin- 
guished by broad clusters, not more than six inches long, of 
very large flowers on stems an inch and a quarter in length, and 
by the soft hairs which cover the low r er surface of the leaves 
throughout the season. This plant, long grown in Japanese 
gardens which contain some very large specimens, is not really 
Japanese at all and is now believed to be an albino form of a 
blue-flowered Wisteria (still unclassified) which is cultivated 
in Peking and other gardens of northern China. This form, too, 
as lately discovered, is found in our gardens, but has been 
confused with W. sinensis. The flower-buds of the Silky 
Wisteria are well developed in the autumn (which is a 
determining feature), and it is the earliest of all Wisterias 
brought into bloom in the winter by artificial heat. There is a 
form with double flowers (var. plena) occasionally cultivated. 
Wisteria floribunda (or multijuga) is the common Wisteria 
of Japan and is come upon growing naturally only in the central 
and southern parts of that country. As already said, it has 
smaller and more fragrant flowers in narrower and more open 
clusters than the Chinese plant, and blooms here ten or twelve 
days later. This Wisteria is one of the most generally cultivated 
garden plants in Japan, and Wilson found in a garden at kasu- 
kabe a plant which extended over a bamboo arbor one-sixth 
of an acre in extent and was covered with flower-clusters which 
measured up to sixty-four inches in length. This garden form 
with the long clusters has been distinguished as variety macro- 
botrys. On wild plants (var. brachybotrys) the flower-clusters 
are sometimes not more than ten inches long, though their length 
varies greatly. There is a beautiful form with pure white flowers 
(var. alba) which is becoming familiar in this country; another 
with flowers of pure pink or white more or less tinged with 
pink (var. rosea) ; and a third with leaves blotched with yellow 
(var. variegata). There is also a double flowered form (var. 
violacea plena) which was first sent to this country in 1862 and 
first flowered here in the garden of Francis Parkman at Jamaica 
Plain. Fortunately this form blooms very rarely, for the flowers 
are ugly, something w'hich cannot be said of any other Wis- 
teria. Although the Japanese Wisteria is usually called W. 
multijuga in gardens, the oldest and correct name for it is W. 
floribunda. The W. sinensis alba of almost all nursery cata- 
logues and many collections has always proved to be the 
white-flowered form of floribunda. 
Wisteria japonica is a smaller plant than the other Asiatic 
species, with slender stems and small clusters of pale yellow 
flowers. This plant flowered in the Dana collection at Dosoris, 
Long Island, in 1879, and once many years ago produced a few 
flowers in the Arnold Arboretum. It is a native of the warmer 
parts of Japan, and not really hardy in the northern states. 
There are two American species, native of the middle and 
southern states, which bloom later than the Asiatic species and 
prolong the Wisteria season for several weeks. 
Wisteria frutescens is the better known native and the more 
northern plant. It is a slender vine with short, compact clusters 
of comparatively small, fragrant flowers. A less showy plant 
than the other species, but interesting as the first of the Wisterias 
cultivated in the United States and Europe. There is a white- 
flowered variety (var. alba). 
Wisteria macrostachya from the Missouri-Louisiana-Texas 
region is a handsome plant and fortunately perfectly hardy in 
Massachusetts. It has much larger flow r ers in longer racemes 
than the other American species from which it can be distin- 
guished by its longer calyx-lobes and by the glandular hairs on 
the calyx and flower-stalks. A fine form of this plant was once 
common in gardens under the name of Wisteria magnifica often 
incorrectly considered a variety of W. frutescens. Another 
form with blue and white flowers has been described under the 
name of var. albo-lilacina. W. macrostachya, although the 
flowers are less showy than those of the Asiatic species, is a 
beautiful plant which merits more widespread cultivation. 
There has been much discussion as to the proper spelling of 
the name: Wisteria and Wistaria have both been used and both 
have had authority. The name was given in honor of Dr. 
Wistar of Philadelphia, but branches of that family spell 
their name in different ways. The governing rule, however, is 
that the first authentic form must stand even though it may be 
an error of orthography; so it is now universally recognized by 
botanists that the form with middle e, Wisteria, is correct. 
