Wisteria sinensis (Sims) Sweet

Chinese Wisteria

Woody climber twining anticlockwise. Leaflets mostly 9-11, hairy at first. Flowers opening more or less together before the leaves are fully expanded in late spring. Fruit pod mostly 10-15 cm long and covered with a fine down. Syn. W. chinensis hort.

It appears that the form introduced to England from Guangzhou in 1816 should now be regarded as a cultivar; the name 'Consequa' has been proposed (Valder, 1995) as applicable to the majority of plants of W. sinensis in cultivation outside China.

China.

Source: Spencer, R. (2002). Fabaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 3. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 2. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.

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Distribution map

Wisteria sinensis 'Alba'

Flowers in clusters 20-35 cm long, white. Int. to the West from China by Robert Fortune in 1846.

Wisteria sinensis 'Amethyst'

Young foliage bronze. Flowers up to 40 on a cluster 12-18 cm long. Standard reddish violet, to 2.5 cm wide.Wings and keel darker. Strongly scented. Darker and more reddish violet than those of 'Consequa'. A New Zealand selection int. to the Australian nursery industry in 1995.

Wisteria sinensis 'Consequa'

Flowers soft blue-violet and sweetly scented, the wings and keel darker than the standard. Standard 2.2-2.5 cm wide, with a white blotch, yellow from the base to about halfway up. Pod small, with only 1-2 seeds and rarely produced. This is the clone originally int. to England in 1816 and described as w. sinensis. The cultivar name is the anglicised version of the name of the Chinese merchant from whose garden it apparently came.

Wisteria sinensis 'Plena'

It seems likely that plants bearing this name are the double w. floribunda 'Violacea Plena'. Plants known as 'Alba Plena' are probably w. brachybotrys 'Shiro Kapitan'.

kingdom Plantae
phylum   Tracheophyta
class    Magnoliopsida
superorder     Rosanae
order      Fabales
family       Fabaceae
genus        Wisteria Nutt.