290 PLANTS OF NEW ZEALAND 



Onagraceae. 



The Fuchsia Family. 



Distribution. — A considerable family, chiefly inhabitants of temperate 

 regions. Some of the species possess slightly astringent properties, and others, 

 of the genera Fuchsia, Clarkia, and Oenothera, are cultivated for their flowers. 



Key to the Genera. 



Herbs. Fruit a capsule. Epilobium, p. 294. 



Shrubs or trees. Fruit a berry. Fuchsia, p. 290. 



Genus Fuchsia. 



Shrubs or trees. Bark thin, papery. Leaves alternate. Flowers solitary, 

 axillary, trimorphic. Calyx with 4 segments ; stamens usually exserted. Fruit 

 a berry, black or purple. (Named after Fuchs, a German physician). 3 sp. 



This well known and closely defined genus is represented in 

 New Zealand by three species. The flowers of the New 

 Zealand forms, though not without beauty of their own, have 

 scarcely the attractiveness of the ordinary garden varieties. 

 However, Fuchsia procumhens (generally known to gardeners 

 under the synonym Fuchsia Kirkii) is often to be found in 

 cultivation in our gardens and greenhouses. It lacks the 

 graceful, pendulous flower-stalks, which enhance so much the 

 beauty of the cultivated forms, but it is a very dainty little 

 species. The sharp contrast between the beautiful waxy 

 yellow of the calyx, and the intense pure blue of the pollen, 

 would make it noticeable anywhere. Any other colour but 

 yellow is rare in pollen, and such a bright hue as this has 

 probably some definite though unknown significance. It is of 

 the same colour in the two other New Zealand species. It 

 is also extremely viscid. This no doubt enables it to cling 

 readily to any insect which may enter the flower. The tui 

 and the korimako may sometimes also be seen with their fore- 

 heads smeared with it, for the flowers are cross-pollinated by 

 them. The viscidity is due to the development by the pollen 

 grains, of structureless drops of a glutinous fluid, that very 

 readily draws out into long fine threads. A similar secretion 



