600 
VINES AND CREEPERS. 
i8i6, but was little known in this country until within thirty years. 
There is no twining vine that will mount so rapidly, or that will 
cover so great a space. Planted at the foot of a lightning-rod it has 
been seen to mount to the top of a five-story house within four 
years after planting. Mr. Fortune, the great botanist, gives the 
following account of a famous vine which he saw in a Japanese 
city: — “On our way (May 20th) we called at Nanka Nobu to see 
a large specimen of Glycine ( Wistaria ) sinensis which was one of 
the lions in this part of the country. It was evidently of great age. 
It (the trunk) measured at three feet from the ground, seven feet in 
circumference, and covered a space of trellis-work 60 x 102 feet. 
The trellis was about eight feet in height, and many thousands of 
the long racemes of glycine hung down nearly half way to the 
ground. One of them which I measured was three feet six inches 
in length ! The thousands of long drooping lilac racemes had a 
most extraordinary and brilliant appearance.” On page 244 some 
wistaria vines, in Germantown, Pa., are mentioned, which have 
covered the head of a lofty hemlock tree, and almost hid it from 
sight under their own more luxuriant growth. If the vine has an 
opportunity to keep on growing vertically, it soon loses its foliage 
towards the bottom. It should therefore have a place for hori- 
zontal expansion in order to exhibit its greatest beauty, unless 
wanted to cover tree-tops. The foliage is composed of long pinnate 
leaves of many leaflets. The flowers appear in May and June, and 
again in August. They are borne in great abundance in long loose 
pendulous racemes from eight inches to several feet in length, and 
are mostly of a pale-blue or lilac color. 
The Chinese White Wistaria, W. ( G.) sine?tsis alba, is a re- 
cently imported variety with white flowers j otherwise resembling 
the preceding. 
The W. brachybotria is a variety with shorter racemes of more 
fragrant light-blue flowers. The W, brachybotria rubra is a variety 
with reddish-purple flowers. The W. 77 iagnifica is a new variety 
with lilac blossoms, believed to be a cross between the Chinese 
wistaria and the American species ; the W. frutescens alba is s 
white-flowered seedling of the latter. 
