Fuchsia triphylla L.   Onagraceae (Evening-Primrose Family)   West Indies   Gartenmeister

                                        April Photo

Plant Characteristics:  Bushy perennial to 5 dm. tall; lvs. opposite, often in threes, ovate to broad oblanceolate, to 9 cm. long, 6 cm. wide, green above, purple below, glabrate, veins on lower side with short sparse hairs; petioles 2 (or more) cm. long, purple; fls. 5 cm. long, in drooping terminal racemes, cinnabar-red, the long hypanthium enlarging toward the top;  sepals 4, short, not reflexed; stamens 4, not exserted.  (Description is mine based on the plant sample and following the description of F. triphylla in Bailey.  The Sunset New Western Garden Book. 1992, 355. describes F. triphylla  as a hybrid descendent of "Gartenmeister Bonstedt", a West Indian species.  The plant I found has larger leaves and flowers than those described in Bailey).

Habitat:  Escape from cultivation.  Blooms late spring to first frost.  A narrow coastal strip from San Diego to Washington is the finest growing area in North America for growing fuchsias and the region in which most varieties were developed.  Another strip inland of the coast finds fuchsias grown, but with more difficulty.  Outside of these two strips, fuchsias are little known, grown as summer annuals or in greenhouses. (Sunset Editors, New Western Garden Book. 1984, 304).

Name:  Fu-chsia: Leonard Fuchs, 1501-1565, German professor of medicine, and botanical author.  Triphyl-lus, three-leaved. (Bailey 739, 23).  Greek, tri, three and Greek, phyllon, leaf.  (Jaeger 270, 196).  

General:  Rare in the study area, one plant found under the willow canopy in lower Big Canyon.      About 100 species of shrubs, or small trees, seldom climbing, mostly in tropical America but a few in New Zealand and Tahiti.  (Bailey 739).

Text Ref:  Bailey 741; Sunset Editors, New Western Garden Book 1992, 355.

Photo Ref:  April-May 92 # 28,29.

Identity: by R. De Ruff.

First Found: April 1992.

Computer Ref: Plant Data 429.

Plant specimen donated to UC Riverside in 2004.

Last edit 8/7/05.

                                          April Photo