Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Edible Flowers guide to Wisteria Flowers along with all the Wisteria Flowers containing recipes presented on this site, with 9 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Wisteria Flowers as a major edible flower.

Wisteria is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae (Leguminosae). The genus includes four species of woody twining vines that are native to China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, southern Canada, the Eastern United States, and north of Iran. They were later introduced to France, Germany and various other countries in Europe. Some species are popular ornamental plants. The genus name is also used as the English name.

Wisterias climb by twining their stems around any available support. W. floribunda (Japanese wisteria) twines clockwise when viewed from above, while W. sinensis (Chinese wisteria) twines counterclockwise. This is an aid in identifying the two most common species of wisteria.[4] They can climb as high as 20m above the ground and spread out 10m laterally. The world's largest known wisteria is the Sierra Madre Wisteria in Sierra Madre, California, measuring more than 1 acre (0.40 ha) in size and weighing 250 tons. Planted in 1894, it is of the 'Chinese lavender' variety.

The leaves are alternate, 15 to 35 cm long, pinnate, with 9 to 19 leaflets. The flowers have drooping racemes that vary in length from species to species.W. frutescens (American wisteria) has the shortest racemes, 5–7cm. W. floribunda (Japanese wisteria) has the longest racemes, 90 centimetres in some varieties and 120 centimetres (47 in) or 200 centimetres in some cultivars. The flowers come in a variety of colours, including white, lilac, purple, and pink, and some W. brachybotrys (Silky wisteria) and W. floribunda cultivars have particularly remarkable colours. The flowers are fragrant, and especially cultivars of W. brachybotrys, W. floribunda, and W. sinensis are noted for their sweet and musky scents.[ Flowering is in spring (just before or as the leaves open) in some Asian species, and in mid to late summer in the American species.

The seeds are produced in pods similar to those of Laburnum, and, like the seeds of that genus, are poisonous. All parts of the plant contain a saponin called wisterin, which is toxic if ingested, and may cause dizziness, confusion, speech problems, nausea, vomiting, stomach pains, diarrhoea and collapse. However, levels in flowers are very low and they are generally considered edible.

Typically wisteria flowers are made into drinks. But they also pair well with eggs and are great in omelettes and pancakes and used as garnishes for scrambled eggs.