Fuchsia 



up inside the drooping calyx tube are set eight green 

 nectaries, two on each sepal. 



The stamens, eight in all, are brightly coloured and 

 very long, and hang far below the petals. The seed-case 

 is oval and at the top of the flower above the calyx 

 tube. From it hangs, like a clapper, a very long 

 reddish style with a thickened stigma knob at the 

 bottom, well below the anthers. Obviously the Fuchsia 

 takes precautions against self-fertilisation. A pollen- 

 coated bee clasps the style and stamens and clambers 

 up into the purple bell, there to suck honey. Its first 

 dusty touch smears the stigma with the pollen that it 

 brought with it, its later clasp coats its own body with 

 pollen from those flowers' anthers. So cross-fertilisation 

 happens. Nevertheless, it has been found that some 

 Fuchsias are fertile to their own pollen. 



A number of minor differences distinguish the various 

 groups of Fuchsias, and it seems difficult to decide 

 whether these differences are sufficient to exalt the groups 

 into separate species, or whether they can merely mark 

 them off into varieties of one fundamental species. 

 Fuchsia macrostemma, the plant of our picture (often 

 known also as F. coccined), is perhaps this species. It 

 is a native of Chile and is the shrub most commonly 

 seen in gardens. Very gay with its reds and purples 

 when at the height of its beauty, it has also a peculiar 



charm on the eve of bursting into flower, for the then 



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