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Wisteria × Formosa Rehd.

Modern name

Wisteria × formosa Rehder

A hybrid between W. sinensis and W. floribunda ‘Alba’, raised in Professor C. S. Sargent’s garden at Holm Lea, Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1905. Leaflets nine to fifteen to a leaf; racemes about 10 in. long; flowers e in. long, each on a stalk 15 to 12 in. long, pale violet, produced in May and June. Young shoots silky downy as are the leaves at first, afterwards becoming bright green on both surfaces and glabrous above. Rehder observes that all the flowers of one raceme open at nearly the same time, unlike those of W. floribunda which open successively from the base upwards; also that this hybrid is superior in beauty to both parents. It was introduced to Kew in 1922.

It is possible that some reputedly inferior forms of W. sinensis are really hybrids of this parentage. See also ‘Issai’ under W. floribunda.


Genus

Wisteria

Other species in the genus