From the mixed up fuchsia files....
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
What’s flowering at the Fuchsietum? Fuchsia ‘Göttingen’, another character in the book, From the Mixed-Up Fuchsia Files of Gartenmeister Carl Bonstedt. I only noticed that it was actually lincorectly labelled “Gartenmeister” when I got it home. But the velveteen leaves gave it away.
One of the other early names of this cultivar is ‘Gartenstadt Göttingen’ (Garden City Göttingen), the city where the Gartenmeister ran the Botanische Garten Göttingen and made most of his famous fuchsia crosses in 1904-1905.
His cross were almost all between Fuchsia triphylla and F. fulgens. Fuchsia 'Mary" was his first release between F. tryphylla x F. boliviana (F. corymbiflora). Subsequent attempts to use F. boliviana were failures and he switched to an easier pollen parent with F. fulgens.
The Gartenmeister of Göttingen introduced a number of hybrids that unfortunately have been lost with time and the upheavals of war. Fuchsia ‘Jelängerjelieber” is one such fascinating long-lost plant, also from 1905. The name amusingly translates as 'The Longer the Dearer’ and it did indeed have trusses of long flowers with exceptionally thin and elegant tubes, as evidenced in a contemporary photograph.
