San Francisco Botanical Garden - Gardens

There are over a hundred species of fuchsia in the world ranging in size from ground creepers and shrubs to trees. They grow naturally in Tahiti, New Zealand and the West Indies, as well as, Central and South America serving as yet another reminder that these continents and islands were once united into a single land mass, Gondwana.

Fuchsias have pendulous, bell shaped flowers consisting of a tube, four petals and four reflexed sepals. The delicate flowers can be single or double-flowered (found only in cultivars) and can usually be seen drooping from woody stems. There are countless “cultivars” and horticultural varieties with diversity in colors and sizes of the petals and sepals. Most fuchsias require frost-free conditions, yet Fuchsia magellanica thrives in the snowy fjords of Chile.

Fuchsia paniculata is native to Mexico and Panama, and grows as a shrub reaching fourteen feet in height with an eight foot spread. Its tiny flowers are massed in panicles that can get up to a foot thick and range from mauve pink to purple. Very similar in appearance is F. arborescens, also from Mexico, though F. paniculata is far more resistant to gall mite which devastated fuchsias years ago.

There are many mite-resistant species of Fuchsia. SF Botanical Garden carries many at our plant sale like:
F. campos-portoi
F. splendens
F. fulgens
F. cinerea
F. paniculata

IN BLOOM CONTRIBUTORS:

Docents Joanne Taylor and Kathy McNeil

Profile Contributor: David Kruse, Associate Curator