The Fuchsia Spotlight. Fuchsia juntasensis

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Fuchsia juntasensis is restricted to cloud forest on the northeast slopes of the Andes in Bolivia's Cochabamba Department, where it occurs at elevations between about 1,900 to 2,800 meters. Flowering is primarily in the dry season from June-Octoiber. It belongs….➤ Read More

The wake of the corpse flower

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These days, it seems, a botanical garden isn’t a botanical garden unless it has its own flowering corpse, Amorphophallus titanium. Or one of any notoriety, at least. When Amorphophallus titanum, the so-called corpse flower…➤ Read More

Goodbye Fuchsia. Hello Gongylocarpus!

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Get out those label makers. Change is coming! But are you sitting down for this one? In a stunning reorganization within the Onagraceae, or Evening Primrose Family, it was announced a year ago this morning that the whole of the genus Fuchsia has been folded into a related spinster genus➤ Read More

Alice Eastwood. Earthquakes and fuchsias

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What do the great earthquake of San Francisco and fuchsias have in common? Why Alice Eastwood, of course. In case you somehow don’t already know her, you should! Eastwood was the pioneering botanist who spent the whole of her long career at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco…➤ Read More

Fuchsia cordifolia. Just for a day.

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I know. I know. Fuchsia cordifolia Benth. is really a synonym of Fuchsia splendens Zucc. A couple of botanists got their descriptions crossed and it’s always, “First come, first served”. But it’s the Feast of Saint Valentine today and the old heartleaf fuchsia...➤ Read More

Charles Darwin and the fuchsia

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Everybody knows Darwin. The man surely needs no introduction. Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was, of course, the great British naturalist, geologist and biologist best known for his seminal and explosive work, On the Origin of Species in 1859...➤ Read More

For the new year, an old fuchsia. Fuchsia antiqua sp. nov.

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I have some good news to share with ardent fuchsiaphiles everywhere. Other botany and horticulture nuts as well. Heck, with everybody. I’m having a hard time keeping my excitement in check...➤ Read More

Happy birthday, Leonhart Fuchs

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My, how times flies. That eminent botanist, Leonhart Fuchs, turns five hundred and thirteen today. He was, in case you’ve been distracted the whole long time, the German physician, botanist and professor after whom the genus Fuchsia...➤ Read More

Alfred Russel Wallace 1823-1913

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Alfred Russel Wallace was one of the most brilliant scientists of the 19th century. A naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist, Wallace independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection...➤ Read More

The ginkgo. There's an orchard hidden on my block

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Out front, on the street, the ginkgo leaves have finally fallen. They turned bright saffron-yellow and gold over the last week or two. Then suddenly, and seemingly all at once, they fell together...➤ Read More