The Fuchsia Cultivars
They're out there, Thousands and thousands and thousands of them.
They're out there, Thousands and thousands and thousands of them.
Fuchsia species have been crossed almost from the moment of their first introduction into our gardens and greenhouses at the very beginning the 19th Century. Estimates vary, but there may currently be anywhere from fifteen to well over twenty thousand different cultivars developed over the course of the last two hundred years. Maybe more. Maybe less. No one really knows for sure.
Many early crosses are now certainly lost and their names just the ghosts of fuchsias past. Few breeders kept any useful records in the past. Record keeping has certainly gotten a little better in recent years but it's still not universally better. There are also many accidental crosses from seeds of unknown parentage that simply popped up in gardens and greenhouse on their own.
The ➤ American Fuchsia Society has served as the ➤ International Registration Authority for Fuchsia Cultivars for the ➤ International Society of Horticultural Science since 1967. It is the world's official registry for the Genus Fuchsia. Other registration efforts, such as that of the British Fuchsia Society, are local lists and not recognized internationally. The Nederlandse Kring van Fuchsiavrieden also registers Dutch hybrids but those are passed on to the international registrar to properly record cultivar names there as well.
While there is no single, comprehensive database of every cultivar ever bred, there is a fairly extensive list put together by the Nederlandse Kring van Fuchsiavrieden and posted on their website ➤ Cultivar Inventory.
Another list is ➤ Fuchsia Finder. You'll find many names, along with pictures, listed there as well. It's certainly a huge database of cultivars. However, many of the species names are botanically incorrect as listed or long synomized and deprecated. Make sure to check any species names against Kew's comprehensive ➤ World Flora Online to verify current taxonomic validity.
Britain's Royal Horticultural Society also commendably maintains an on-line list of plants, including fuchsias, but, there again, its Fuchsia species need to be checked against World Flora On-line for their currently correct taxonomic status.
These lists are best navigated if you can start with a cultivar name or are interested in cultivars attributed to single breeders. Unfortunately, it remains difficult to start the other way around and put a name to an unknown flower. Despite the much-ballyhooed intrusions of Artificial Unintelligence into practically every corner of the internet and beyond, even the AI-addled giants such as Google are incapable of returning results beyond fuchsias with a similar vague shape and color.
Many early crosses are now certainly lost and their names just the ghosts of fuchsias past. Few breeders kept any useful records in the past. Record keeping has certainly gotten a little better in recent years but it's still not universally better. There are also many accidental crosses from seeds of unknown parentage that simply popped up in gardens and greenhouse on their own.
The ➤ American Fuchsia Society has served as the ➤ International Registration Authority for Fuchsia Cultivars for the ➤ International Society of Horticultural Science since 1967. It is the world's official registry for the Genus Fuchsia. Other registration efforts, such as that of the British Fuchsia Society, are local lists and not recognized internationally. The Nederlandse Kring van Fuchsiavrieden also registers Dutch hybrids but those are passed on to the international registrar to properly record cultivar names there as well.
While there is no single, comprehensive database of every cultivar ever bred, there is a fairly extensive list put together by the Nederlandse Kring van Fuchsiavrieden and posted on their website ➤ Cultivar Inventory.
Another list is ➤ Fuchsia Finder. You'll find many names, along with pictures, listed there as well. It's certainly a huge database of cultivars. However, many of the species names are botanically incorrect as listed or long synomized and deprecated. Make sure to check any species names against Kew's comprehensive ➤ World Flora Online to verify current taxonomic validity.
Britain's Royal Horticultural Society also commendably maintains an on-line list of plants, including fuchsias, but, there again, its Fuchsia species need to be checked against World Flora On-line for their currently correct taxonomic status.
These lists are best navigated if you can start with a cultivar name or are interested in cultivars attributed to single breeders. Unfortunately, it remains difficult to start the other way around and put a name to an unknown flower. Despite the much-ballyhooed intrusions of Artificial Unintelligence into practically every corner of the internet and beyond, even the AI-addled giants such as Google are incapable of returning results beyond fuchsias with a similar vague shape and color.
