The term wisteria, which refers to a genus of colorful climbing shrubs, was coined in 1819 by English anatomist Thomas Nuttall in honor of Caspar Wistar, an anatomy professor who had passed away earlier that year. The name was formed by combining Wistar’s name with the noun-ending suffix -ia. Interestingly, the spelling of Wistar’s name contains an a, while wisteria contains an e. This discrepancy was commonly believed to be a mistake, but a 1898 interview with Nuttall revealed otherwise. Nuttall explained that he purposely chose the spelling wisteria because he found it to be more melodious. Additionally, there was a branch of the Wistar family known as the Wisters, leading Nuttall to believe that the two versions were essentially the same. The Wistar family had originally anglicized their name from Wüster, a German word with connections to the English term waste.
