Wild Wisteria
by Suzanne Stout
Title
Wild Wisteria
Artist
Suzanne Stout
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photography
Description
Wisteria is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae (Leguminosae), that includes ten species of woody climbing bines that are native to China, Korea, Japan, and the Eastern United States. Some species are popular ornamental plants. An aquatic flowering plant with the common name wisteria or 'water wisteria' is in fact Hygrophila difformis, in the family Acanthaceae.
The botanist Thomas Nuttall said he named the genus Wisteria in memory of the American physician and anatomist Caspar Wistar (1761–1818). Questioned about the spelling later, Nuttall said it was for "euphony," but his biographer speculated that it may have something to do with Nuttall's friend Charles Jones Wister, Sr., of Grumblethorpe, the grandson of the merchant John Wister.
Some Philadelphia sources state that the plant is named after Wister. As the spelling is apparently deliberate, there is no justification for changing the genus name under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.However, some spell the plant's common name "wistaria".
Uploaded
April 22nd, 2020
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