Tabs. 6795. 
FUCHSIA TRIPHYLLA. 
Native of St. Domingo. 
Nat. Ord. ONaGRARIER. 
Genus Fucusta, Linn, ; (Benth. et Hook. f: Gen. Pl. vol. i. p. 790.) 
Fucnsta triphylla ; fruticulus pubescens, foliis ternatim verticillatis breviter 
petiolatis oblanceolatis acutis subserratis supra viridibus, puberulis subtus 
purpurascentibus velutino-pubescentibus, nervis numerosis arcuatis, floribus 
corymbosis nutantibus v. pendulis, bracteis viridibus pedicellis perianthiisque 
toto-coccineis, calycis tubo basi modice inflato dein gracili supra medium inflato- 
ellipsoideo, lobis triangularibus acutis, petalis rotundatis calycis lobis brevioribus, 
staminibus 4 alternipetalis petalis subequilongis 4 oppositipetalis petalis 
brevioribus, stylo exserto. 
F. triphylla, Zinn. Sp. Pl. p. 1191; Willd. in Usteri Annal. vol. iii. t. 6, fig. 3 
(copied from Plumier) ; Hemsley in Gard. Chron. 1884, vol. ii. p. 263. 
‘F. racemosa, Zamk. Dict. vol. ii. p. 565 ; and JIU. t. 282, fig. 1; DC. Prodr. vol. iii. 
p. 39; Descourlitz Flore Medica des Antilles, vol. ii. p. 161, t. 109. 
Focusta triphylla flore coccineo; Plumier, Nov. Plant. Amer. Gen. p. 14, t. 14; 
and Plant. Amer. Ed. Burm. t. 133, fig. 1. 
A most interesting plant, from being the type of the 
well-known and large genus Fuchsia, which was founded 
upon it 180 years ago, and yet it has been all but unknown 
to science till the present year! I cannot do better than 
extract the details of this anomaly in botanical history and 
literature from an excellent account of Fuchsia triphylla 
drawn up by Mr. Hemsley for the “ Gardener’s Chronicle ” 
(cited above), premising that Mr. Hemsley was the first to 
recognize the name and interest of the plant, when trans- 
mitted to Kew by Messrs. Henderson for naming. 
In the latter part of the seventeenth century, Father 
Plumier, a missionary, collected largely in the West Indies, 
and chiefly in the Island of St. Domingo, and in 1703 
published his ‘* Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera.” 
Of these genera one was that which he called “ Fuchsia 
triphylla flore coccineo.” It isaccompanied witha rude and 
inexact figure, only four stamens being represented, and 
the petals being of a wrong form; there is, however, no 
JANUARY Ist, 1885. 
