WISTARIA. 601 WITCH BROOMS. walls of luuisi's oi- over arliors ixnd trellises. Some of tliciii arcaniong the most inafrnificcnt ornauieiital climbers known in llower f;arilens. The Chinese wistaria {Wi.it<iria Chinensis) , the finest and most popular cultivated .species, AMERICAN WISTARIA. produces long clusters of showy blue flowers. It sometimes blossoms a second time in the fall. There are white, double-flowered and variegated-leaved horticultural varieties. This species is not hardy in the Northern United States. The American wistaria {Wistaria frtites- cens) produces clusters of dark blue flowers a little later in the season than the foregoing spe- cies. Wistarias grow in almost any soil and are propagated by seeds, laj^ers, cuttings, and divi- sion. The young shoots are frequently layered in the summer and the young plants separated from the parent plant the next spring. WIS'TER, Annis Lee (Furness) (1830—). An American translator, born in Philadelphia. She was the daughter of the Rev. William H. Furness. by whom she was educated. In 1854 she married Dr. Caspar Wister. She early began the study of German, busying herself with trans- lation. During her literary career she trans- lated and adapted the novels of many leading contemporary German writers, and these were assembled in 1888 in a uniform edition of thirty volumes. Some of the titles are: Old Mainselle's Secret (18f)8); Gold Elsie (1S68); The Second Wife (1874); Violetta (ISSfi); and The Oivl's Nest (1888). She published in collaboration with Dr. F. H. Hedge Metrical Translations and Poems (1888). WISTER, OwEX (1800—). An American writer, born in Philadelphia, Pa. He graduated at Harvard in 1882 and at the Harvard Law School in 1888, and was admitted to the Phila- delphia bar in 1880. but after 1891 devoted him- self almost wholly to literature. His stories, which deal largely with Western life and char- acter, are widely popular. Besides contributing a number of short stories and some verse to the magazines, he publishetl: The Modern SiHss Family Rohinson (1883) ; The Drnqon of Want- ley: Bis Tail (1892. new ed. 1902) ; Red Man and White (1896); Lin McLean (1898); The Jimmy John Hoss uiiil (nhir Stories (1900); U. S. (Irant, a Itioi/raiihy (1900) ; The Virr/inian (1902), which was exceedingly popular; Olirer Wendell Holmes (1902), in the "American Men of Letters Series;" lienjamin Franklin (1904), in the "English Men of Letters Series;" and Philosophy Four (1903), a short sketch. In co- operation with G. B. Grinnell and Caspar Whit- ney, he also published The Bison, Musk-Ox, Sheep, rind Goat Family (1903), in the "Ameri- can Sportsman's Library." WITAN. A term frequently used for the national council in Anglo-Saxon England, more foniially known as tlie Wilciia^jcmot (q.v.). WIT AT SEVERAL WEAPONS. A comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, possibly with as- Sistanc<> from Jliddleton, produc'ed in 1014, printed in 1047. It gives a humorous picture of contemporary London life. Fleay suggests that it is an alteration of the Devil of Dowgate. WITCH (AS. icicca, wizard, wicce, witch, probably from icltga, wltiga, loU.ega. OHG. tmz- ago, n-iz::ago, seer, soothsayer, magician, from AS., Goth, iritan, OHG. mz- zan, Ger. icissen, to know; connected with Lat. videre, Gk. lieiii, idein, OChurch Slav, vidyeti, Skt. vid, to see, know) (versiera). A higher plane curve. It re- sembles somewhat the shell- shaped branch of the con- choid (q.v.) and is defined as follows: The locus of a point P so taken on the per- pendiculars to the diameter OA of a circle that in the LM _ MA figure pjj - OA- " » '^ the radius of the circle, the Cartesian equation of the witch referred to the axis OX, OY in the figure is , 4r'.c y — 2,.__j • ( See Coordi- nates.) The curve is sym- metric with respect to the X-axis, lies be- tween the Y-axis and the line ^r = 2r, and has the line x = 2r as an asymptote (q.v.) to its two infinite branches. The area of the witch is four times that of the auxiliary circle and has 4-point contact (see Contact) with the circle at the origin. Consult: Loria. "Versiera visiera e pseudo- versiera," in Bihliotheca Mathematica (1897); Aubry, in the Journal de mathematiques spe- ciales (1895); Intermediairedes math^maticiens (1894). WITCH, The. A comedy by Thomas Middle- ton, produeed probably in 1621. and printed in 1778 from a unique manuscript in the Bodleian Library. The plot is taken from Machiavelli's Florentine History, and from R. Scott's Discov- ery of Witchcraft. A resemblance to the witches in Mnehrth aroused a controversy concerning the priority of the two plays. WITCH BROOMS. The peculiar tufted shoots produced upon various trees, especially conifers, by the presence of certain parasitic fungi. The branches ordinarily have their structure modi-
