Wisteria brachybotrys
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Wisteria brachybotrys' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Wisteria venusta f. violacea Rehder
Infraspecifics
Other taxa in genus
Editorial Note
Bean dealt with this species under the name Wisteria venusta f. violacea Rehder, treating the white-flowered form cultivated in Japan as Wisteria venusta, as explained below. Bean’s account of both of these taxa has been edited to reflect the current understanding of the taxonomy.
[Bean’s description is based on the white-flowered form discussed further under the cultivar ‘Alba’]
A deciduous climber growing 30 ft and upwards high; young shoots softly downy. Leaves pinnate, 8 to 14 in. long, composed usually of eleven leaflets, sometimes nine or thirteen; main-stalk downy. Leaflets oval to ovate, with a tapered apex and usually rounded base, 11⁄2 to 31⁄2 in. long, 1⁄2 to 11⁄2 in. wide, both surfaces, but especially the lower one, softly downy. Racemes pendulous 4 to 6 in. long, 3 to 4 in. wide, the stalks densely downy. Flowers [purple], 1 to 11⁄4 in. long; standard petal roundish, 1 in. wide. Calyx downy, cup-shaped, about 1⁄2 in. wide, the lobes triangular or awl-shaped; flower-stalks about 11⁄2 in. long at the base of the raceme, becoming shorter towards the end. Pods 6 to 8 in. long, velvety. Bot. Mag., t. 8811.
This is the normal purple-flowered wild form [of the species whose white form was described by Rehder as W. venusta], a native of Japan in the western part of the main island and in the southern islands (Shikoku and Kyushu). The original name Wisteria venusta f. violacea was founded on a specimen collected by Wilson in Kyushu on Mt Kirishima in 1914, but this wild form had been found earlier by Richard Oldham, who collected it near Nagasaki in 1863. There seems to be really little doubt that this was the same plant as the naturally occurring W. brachybotrys described and figured by Siebold and Zuccarini in Flora Japonica, Vol. I, p. 92 and t. 45 (1839), from a specimen collected near Nagasaki. This is at any rate the view of at least two leading Japanese botanists.
The identity of this wisteria was long in doubt, and since the publication of the second volume of Plantae Wilsonianae in 1916, Wilson’s view has been generally accepted that W. brachybotrys was synonymous with W. floribunda and simply the wild, short-racemed form of that species. However at that time Rehder and Wilson were apparently unaware that a wild counterpart of [the cultivated, white-flowered] W. venusta existed in Japan and suggested wrongly that W. venusta was a garden variety of a species occurring in N. China (this is actually W. villosa Rehd.). It was not until 1926 that Rehder acknowledged the existence of a wild form of W. venusta in Japan, naming it W. venusta f. violacea. If the view of Japanese botanists such as Ohwi and Makino were to be accepted, W. venusta would take the name W. brachybotrys ‘Alba’ and W. venusta f. violacea Rehd. would become W. brachybotrys simply [Ed: the approach adopted here]. It is probably the latter that was introduced to the Ghent Botanic Garden by Siebold in 1830, actually as W. brachybotrys. It has generally been assumed, however, that this was W. floribunda.
'Alba' Ohwi
Synonyms / alternative names
Wisteria brachbotrys var. alba W.T.Mill.
Wisteria brachybotrys f. alba (W.T.Mill.) Hurusawa
Wisteria venusta Rehder & E.H.Wilson
Flowers white, opening in May and June, slightly fragrant, 1 to 11⁄4 in. long. This form has long been cultivated in Japan, where it is known as ‘Shira Fuji’. It was described in 1916 but was first seen in Britain in May 1912, when (as W. brachybotrys) it was shown in bloom in the Japanese section of the International Horticultural Exhibition at Chelsea, and was introduced to Kew in the following year from the Yokohama Nursery Company.
Under the name W. venusta, this plant used to grow luxuriantly in the garden of Hugh Wormald at Heathfield, East Dereham, Norfolk (Journ. R.H.S., Vol. 59 (1934), p. 280 and fig. 99); ibid., Vol. 73 (1948), p. 331 and fig. 137). It received an Award of Merit in 1945 when exhibited by Messrs Notcutt, who acquired their original stock from Mr Wormald, and a First Class Certificate in 1948. The original plant no longer exists, but Mr Woormald reported that a vigorous plant on the house may have originated from it (Clarke 1988). Earlier it had been largely imported from Japan but the plants were often badly grafted and short-lived. It can be kept permanently in a shrubby state by shortening the long shoots once or twice in summer and then pruning them to within an inch or two of the base in winter. It is quite hardy and a beautiful wisteria. Besides being larger than those of the white-flowered forms of W. sinensis and W. floribunda its flowers are of greater substance and all open more or less simultaneously.
'Alba Plena'
This has more or less double white flowers. It appears to have been in cultivation previous to the introduction of the single form, as “W. sinensis alba plena”.