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Tried and True Native Plant Selections
for the Mid-Atlantic
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Wisteria frutescens (American Wisteria)
The wild native wisteria is a climbing vine with chains of richly colored, sweetly fragrant flowers, although not as dramatic or as rampant as its Asian cousins. This member of the Pea family is native to wet forests and stream banks of the southeastern United States.* The Virginia Native Plant Society selected American Wisteria as Wildflower of the Year for 2021.
*It is adventive (non-native, escaped from cultivation) in DE’s Coastal Plain and endangered in PA where it is clustered mostly in the southwestern corner. In VA, it is rare as a native in the southern and central Coastal Plain and rare as an escape throughout. It is found in Fairfax County but that is probably an escape of the Midwest variant, “macrostachya.”
Learn more about other Mid-Atlantic plants:
Tried and True Native Plant Fact Sheets