2. FUCHSIA, Linn.
Shrubs or small trees. Leaves alternate or opposite or whorled. Flowers axillary, solitary or clustered, rarely in racemes or panicles, usually pendulous, often handsome. Calyx-tube ovoid, produced above the ovary into a tubular or companulate 4-lobed limb. Petals 4, often small, rarely wanting, convolute, spreading or reflexed. Stamens 8; filaments filiform; anthers linear or oblong. Ovary 4-celled; style slender, elongated; stigma capitate, entire or 4-lobed; ovules numerous, attached to the inner angle of the cells. Berry ovoid or oblong, fleshy, 4-celled, many-seeded.
A beautiful and well-known genus of about 60 species, all of which, with the exception of the three following, are natives of America, from Mexico to Fuegia.
* Flowers pendulous. Petals present, small. | |
Shrub or tree 10–40 ft. high. Leaves lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate | 1. F. excorticata. |
Small shrub with long straggling branches. Leaves ovate or orbicular-ovate | 2. F. Colensoi. |
** Flowers erect. Petals wanting. | |
Stems very slender, trailing. Leaves small, orbicular-ovate | 3. F. procumbens. |
1. F. excorticata, Linn. f. Suppl. 217.—A shrub or small tree 40ft. high; trunk usually 6–18 in. diam., but sometimes reaching 2–3 ft.; bark thin, loose and papery; branches brittle. Leaves alternate, 2–5 in. long including the slender petiole, ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, acuminate, entire or obscurely and remotely toothed, thin and membranous, green above, pale and silvery beneath. Plowers ¾–1¼ in. long, axillary, solitary, pendulous; peduncles long, slender. Calyx-tube inflated at the base, then suddenly contracted and again expanded into a funnel-shaped tube; lobes 4, acuminate, spreading. Petals 4, small. Stamens and style very variable in length. Berry oblong, purplish-black, juicy, ½ in. long.—Lindl. in Bot. Reg. t. 857; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 533; Raoul, Choix, 49; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 56; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 75; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 36, 36a; Students' Fl. 180. Skinnera excorticata, Forst. Char. Gen. 58; Prodr. n. 163; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 331.