Linnaeus Day - Wisteria

So this is my first post for Linnaeus Day, a cool new monthly celebration of plants' history, breeding and unique taxonomy. Started by Christopher Tidrick of From the Soil just last month, Linnaeus Day is held on the 23rd of each month in honor of Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus – born May 23, 1707). The goal: to find the story behind plants growing just outside our window. In other words, to let our plant freak flags fly.

So I'm just gonna jump in and start with wisteria, since I have this wonderful example growing just outside MY window (in my Zone 6ish, Rochester, NY garden):

OK, so in this picture, it's not so wonderful – at least not without its pendulous, purplish-blue blooms. But I have to admit, I've been intrigued by this plant ever since I saw this specimen of Chinese wisteria trained into bonsai form by members of the International Bonsai Society at Rochester's GardenScape Flower & Garden Show in 2010:

Taxonomy

Now, I'm pretty sure I knew wisteria is a vine, and therefore had to be trained into the "tree" you see in the pictures above. (But I didn't know that – at least according to Wikipedia – it's a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae, that includes 10 species of deciduous, perennial, woody vines native to the eastern United States and to China, Korea and Japan. (I wish I knew which species or cultivar this is. The tree was here when we moved here 2 1/2 years ago, and since then I've been trying to figure it out).

Wisteria frutescens (Robert H. Mohlenbrock, USDA SCS. 1991) Field office guide to plant species. South National Technical Center. Fort Worth, Texas. Courtesy USDA NRCS Wetland Science Institute.

So, wisteria's native to the eastern U.S.? Really? I thought it was just from Asia … To be specific, I learned that Wisteria sinensis and Wisteria floribunda originated in Asia, but Wisteria frutescens is native to the United States, mainly in the wet forests and stream banks of the southeastern United States from Virginia to Texas and southeast through Florida.

Wisteria sinensis (Chinese wisteria) J.S. Peterson USDA NRCS NPDC. Australia, New South Wales, Sydney. Royal Botanical Gardens. March 13, 2002.

So back to taxonomy. Wikipedia says wisteria was named by botanist Thomas Nuttall, who named it in memory of Dr. Caspar Wistar (1761-1818). Or was it his friend, Charles Jones Wister? Nobody knows, and so some call it "wistaria." Now that's some hardcore devotion to botanical nomenclature.

History & Breeding

I also knew wisteria to be an aggressive grower, since it requires trimming at least two times a month in the growing season to keep it from eating small dogs and children. (My husband, who fights this tree like Ralphie's dad fights the furnace in A Christmas Story, bitterly calls it the "Japanese Bumble Tree.") But I didn't know that wisteria can actually strangle large trees and is considered an invasive plant in places like Florida. Considered a pest in many wild areas, it's able to bloom without any care, Despite this, many folks have problems getting the wisteria adorning their front porches to bloom.

Wisteria floribunda (Japanese wisteria). J.S. Peterson USDA NRCS NPDC. Australia, New South Wales, Sydney. Royal Botanical Gardens. March 13, 2002.

That's when I found this HGTV.com article, in which master gardener Maureen Gilmer explains why: In short, wisteria grown from seeds is very variable in its flowering, with some plants not blooming for 20 years. Breeders realized that the W. floribunda and W. sinensis seeds brought to the U.S. from China and Japan via seeds in the early 1800s had produced generations of unreliable bloomers here. So they returned to Far East to find long-venerated heavy bloomers and then, through the propagation technique of layering, have propagated new plants with identical characteristics. These are the new wisteria – those with the single-quote cultivar names at the end. And it's these specific cultivars, like 'Texas Purple' or 'Violacea Plena', that you should be looking for, Gilmer says – not just W. sinensis or W. floribunda. (The cultivar is, in essence, the promise that a plant will have identical characteristics to its parents).

So that's all I have to say about wisteria right now. And Linnaeus Day. Except for the fact that my birthday happens to be May 24 – a day after Linnaeus. Free plants accepted here as gifts - all in the name of science, of course, so I can have more plants to research and share with the world.