History
The history of breeding with Fuchsia triphylla begins with Charles Plumier.
This French mendicant and botanist discovered the Fuchsia triphylla in the forests of the Cordillera Central in 1695, during his third trip to the island of Hispaniola when he was looking for medicinal plants. He named the plant after Leonhart Fuchs (1501 -1556) a German botanist and physician affiliated with the University of Tübingen.
Leonard Fuchs was the first physician and botanist in Europe to establish an educational botanical garden near his home. He was also the botanist who discovered the medicinal effect of Cannabis.
Plumier was the first botanist to name a plant genus after a person.
Charles Plumier's herbarium never arrived in Europe because the ship on which it was transported sank in a storm. Fortunately, the documents and drawings were on another ship at the time.
It was not until 1703 that a black and white drawing was published in the Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera. This drawing is unfortunately incomplete, because four stamens are missing.
During the search for the history of the Fuchsia triphylla, a book from 1804 turned up.
In the “Vollständiges Lexikon der Gärtnerei” the Fuchsia triphylla is described. This is probably a copy that stood in the gardens of "Herrenhausen". It is unclear whether breeding was done with this Fuchsia triphylla at that time.
Many years later, in 1873, Thomas Hogg also visited San Domingo where he collected seeds of the
Fuchsia triphylla and took them to America.
In 1884 Henderson, a breeder from London, sent a specimen of Fuchsia triphylla to Kew Gardens under the name Fuchsia racemosa for identification.
(The Gardener's chronical no. 18-1882)
It was a specimen introduced in 1884 by Thomas Hogg who brought seeds from San Domingo. After that date, the spread of Fuchsia triphylla started and with it the breeding.
Around this time, Carl Bonstedt was also working at Kew Gardens.
During that period, Carl Bonstedt obtained a plant of the Fuchsia triphylla and took it with him when he returned to Germany.
This is where breeding with the Fuchsia triphylla really started.
Note writer:It is incomprehensible that you read in several publications both older and younger that Fuchsia triphylla was discovered by Linnaeus. Even a respectable association like the Dutch Circle of Fuchsiavrienden says this in its publications on the internet (https://www.nkvf.nl/_data_bil/_public/scription.php description with photo) of the botanical group and also in the book: Botanical Fuchsias by Mia Goedman (page 50) Linnaeus is credited as the discoverer.