FUCHSIA - part 2

It would seem that James Lee was informed by one of his customers that they had seen a very pretty and unusual plant in the window of a cottage in Wapping. His curiosity aroused, he went to see for himself and when he saw the plant he quickly realised the commercial value, and was consequently keen to acquire it. The woman who owned it was, however, reluctant to part with it because it had a sentimental value for her, having been brought home to her from South America by her sailor son (some versions of this story say it was her husband). However, terms were agreed; here again versions vary, as some say James Lee gave her all the money in his pocket, about eight guineas, and others that he came back the next day and kept increasing his offer until she finally accepted a price of eighty guineas, but this latter version would appear less likely. One thing is certain and that is that she would not part with it until he agreed to let her have the first two cuttings. By 1790 James Lee had raised 300 plants from the original fuchsia, and these he sold for one guinea each. It is not recorded which species it was.

The first known record of a hybrid was in 1832, being a cross between F. coccinea and F. magellanica, after which many hybrids were raised. Towards the end of the nineteenth century there were 1,500 or so named varieties, but, like many plants, hundreds of these were lost during the two world wars, and nowadays it is doubtful if a third of these old varieties still exist, despite the fact that varieties have kept turning up, from many amateur growers, which have been passed on from one grower to another. As with all groups of popular plants, such as pelargoniums and chrysanthemums, many new varieties have been bred during the past thirty years, and the modern hybrids are usually superior to the old ones. There are two main groups of fuchsias: hardy fuchsias, which are grown as permanent bushes in the garden, and greenhouse fuchsias which are grown in pots and need protection in the colder months, as they are not frost-hardy. As we are only dealing with greenhouse and house plants, it is the cultivation of

the latter group which is described.

FUCHSIA

Family Onagraceae

Charles I'lumier is recorded as finding the first fuchsias in 1703 in San Domingo in the West Indies, which he named Fuchsia tryphylla flore coccinea. The name Fuchsia was in commemoration of Leonhart Fuchs, (1501 -66), a physician and herbalist. Father Charles Plumier, or Pere Plumier, was a distinguished French traveller and botanist, who made three voyages to the West Indies and tropical South America, and in 1703 he published a book dealing with the plants he had discovered in his travels, including the fuchsia he had found.

Haifa century later Linnaeus re-named it Fuchsia tryphylla, as it is known today. As the years passed,

further species were found and added to the genus, but Fuchsia tryphylla was not amongst them and for

over 150 years it was not seen again. In 1873 Thomas Hogg of New York received some seeds from the

West Indies and some nine years later one of the resultant plants came into the hands of Messrs

Henderson & Sons, the London fuchsia specialists at that lime, who sent it to Kew for identification. It was

found to be the long lost Fuchsia tryphylla. The first fuchsia introduced to Great Britain was in 1788, by a Captain Firth, who presented it to the Botanical Gardens at Kew. It is not certain whether this was the species F. coccinea, or F. macrosiemma. The first fuchsias offered commercially were probably by Mr James Lee, a famous nurseryman of Hammersmith in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.