Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/714

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C90 WISHART WISTARIA England, against the invocation of the Vir- gin, was condemned therefor, and recanted his opinions. In 1543 he was a tutor in Cambridge, but in July returned to Scotland with the commissioners sent to negotiate a marriage treaty between Prince Edward and the infant queen of Scots. Under their pro- tection he preached at Montrose, Dundee, and other Scottish towns, and his preaching led the people to destroy some convents and Ro- man Catholic churches. He was arrested at Ormiston by the earl of Bothwell and deliv- ered to Cardinal Beaton, who tried him on his own authority before an ecclesiastical court, and sentenced him to be burned. At the stake Wishart predicted with minuteness the violent and ignominious death of the car- dinal, as it occurred three months after. His life has been written by the Rev. 0. Rogers (London, 1876). WISHART, George, a Scottish historian, born in Haddingtonshire in 1609, died in 1671. He is said to have been educated at the university of Edinburgh, and became a parish minister at St. Andrews. Refusing to take the covenant, he was deposed, and was several times impris- oned. He became chaplain to Montrose, and afterward to Elizabeth, the ex-electress pala- tine, and on tho restoration was made rector of Newcastle. He was consecrated bishop of Edinburgh in 1662. He is chiefly known by his " History of the Wars of Montrose " (1st part, in Latin, Paris, 1647; English translation of both parts, London, 1652, 1720). Ulsirnmvisil. See PRAIRIE Doo. WISMAR, a seaport town of Mecklenburg- Schwerin, Germany, on a bay of the Baltic, 18 m. N. of Schwerin ; pop. in 1871, 13,883. It has an excellent harbor, over 50 registered vessels, a fine Gothic and five other churches, a new town hall, a gymnasium, a school of navigation, and other public buildings. Ma- chinery, tobacco, and chiccory are the chief manufactures, and grain is the principal ex- port. Wiamar was one of the Hanse towns. Under the treaty of Westphalia of 1648 it was annexed to Sweden ; in 1803 it was restored to Mecklenburg. The neighboring Wenndorff has been a watering place since 1867. VISTAK. Caspar, an American physician, born in Philadelphia, Sept 13, 1761, died there, Jan. 22, 1818. He graduated M. D. at Edinburgh in 1786, and became professor of chemistry and physiology in the medical school of Phila- delphia. From 1792 he was adjunct, and from 1808 till his death full professor of anatomy and surgery. From 1815 he was president of the American philpsophical society. He pub- lished "A System of Anatomy " (2 vols. 8vo, Philadelphia, 1811). WISTARIA, a genus of woody climbers of the family leguminoaa. The first species known was our native W. fruteacens, which was placed by Linnaeus in the genus glycine, from which on account of marked differences it was removed by Nuttall (1818) and placed in a new genus, dedicated to Prof. Caspar Wistar of Philadelphia. In some nursery catalogues it is still enumerated as glycine. Our species is found from West Virginia and Illinois to Florida and Louisiana, in alluvial soils, climb- ing high upon trees; the pinnate leaves, with 9 to 15 lance-ovate leaflets, are downy when young, as are the young stems ; the flowers are in dense hanging racemes 6 in. or more long, appearing in May and June at the ends of the recent shoots ; the individual flowers are pea- shaped, with tho large roundish standard turned back, bearing two callosities at the base, and the wing petals each have one short and one long appendage at the base ; the smooth ovary ripens into a long, knobby pod, containing several seeds about the size of the garden bean. The flowers are usually of a deli- cate lilac purple, with a slight fragrance; there is a variety with pure white flowers. The Chi- Chinese Wistaria (Wistaria Sinensls). nese wistaria ( W. Sinerwis), a fa- vorite in China and Japan, was introduced into England in 1816; it grows more rapidly than the native, and blooms much earlier ; the flowers appear when the leaves are but partially developed, and are in longer, looser, more conical clusters than the preceding, and of a paler lilac color. It is largely planted in New York and other cities, where it climbs to the eaves of the tallest houses. There is also a white variety which is a most rampant grower, often extending 20 ft. in a season. A garden variety, called W. maynifica, is by some said to be a hybrid between the Chinese and the native, while oth- ers regard it as a large-flowered form of the latter, which it resembles in foliage, but has much finer clusters. The short-clustered wis- taria ( W. brachybotrys) is a low-growing Japa- nese species, with short racemes of large violet- colored flowers. W. multijuga has very long, slender, loose-flowered, branching clusters ; this, and several others (including a double-