Fuchias in the City | Fuchsia Section Kierschlegeria
The Genus Fuchsia

Section Kierschlegeria
(one species)


This section was named in honor of Frédéric R. Kirschleger,(1804-1869), a French-Alsatian physician and botanist, who was a professor of botany at the school of pharmacy in Strasbourg. He also founded the Société d'Horticulture du Bas-Rhin (1845), and established the Société philomathique vogésorhénane (1862). Among his notable achievements is the Flore d’Alsace et des contrées limitrophes, a highly regarded publication on the flora of Alsace and neighboring regions, which was released in three volumes from 1852 to 1862.

Name: Fuchsia sect. Kierschlegeria.

Typus: F. lycioides Kunth.
F. lycioides  Kunth
Central Coastal Chile. This section’s single inhabitant is a tetraploid (n = 22) xerophyte restricted to a narrow coastal belt in the Mediterranean-climate zone of central Chile (Atsatt & Rundel 1982; Berry 1989).
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The shrub’s small, alternate leaves are deciduous leaving their spinose bases behind after dropping away. It often forms interspecific hybrids with Fuchsia magellanica at the northern edge of the latter’s range.

Habit—Shrub.

Leaves—Alternate, small, deciduous, bases spinose.

Flowers—Axillary, solitary, divergent, floral tube 3 to 10 mm long, nectaries lobed, band-type, sepals reflexed, pink or pale purple, petals pink or pale purple, stamens in two unequal series, pollen yellow, tri-aperturate, viscin threads smooth, stigma quadrilobed.

Fruit—Berries.

Seeds—14 to 30 per berry.

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Chromosomes—Gametic chromosome number n = 22, x = 11.

Authors—Andrews 1800 & 1807. Atsatt & Rundel 1982. Berry 1989.

Original publication—Nov. Gen. Sp. 6: 106 1823.

Synonyms—
F. rosea, Ruiz & Pavon 1802; F.  parviflora, Lindley 1827; F. spinosa, Presl 1835; F. rosea var. spinosa, Reiche 1898.

Herbarium Specimens—
Arizona State 1, Arizona State 2, Arizona State 3, Arizona State 4; Berlin; Smithsonian.