Fuchsia magellanica Lam., Fuchsia
Account Summary
Introduction, neophyte, both deliberately planted and naturalised, frequent.
1953; MCM & D; Letterbailey Td.
March to November.
Growth form, origin and introduction
This familiar, bright red and purple pendulous flowered, deciduous shrub grows up to c 3 m. It has papery, peeling brown bark and opposite or 3- or 4-whorled, ovate to elliptic leaves with toothed to entire margins. Popular with gardeners as it flowers from June to October, F. magellanica is a native of Argentina and Chile and was thought to have been introduced to horticulture in the British Isles in 1788, although this may really have happened as late as the 1820s (Sell & Murrell 2009). It was first recorded in the wild in Britain in 1857 (D.A. Pearman, in: Preston et al. 2002).
Fermanagh occurrence
Fuchsia is never anything like as abundant in Fermanagh's hedgerows as it is in parts of W Donegal (H35) and in other Irish seaboard situations stretching anticlockwise from Antrim (H39) to E Cork (H5). Despite this, it is still quite frequently found in Fermanagh, having been recorded in 65 tetrads, 12.3% of those in the VC. Locally, Fuchsia is especially associated with old hedges near small upland or bogland homesteads in N & W Fermanagh, but it also occurs in a wide variety of other habitats including cliffs, scarps and by waterfalls. Its habitats range from cut-over bogs to hedges beside lakes and along waterways and waysides.
Sexuality and sterility: an important limiting factor: Observations suggest that the great majority of Fuchsia bushes in Ireland were originally deliberately planted from around the 1850s onward for roadside or field hedging, or along woodland paths. Over a century later the shrub had become naturalised in more wild, semi-natural situations, but only occasionally so, and to a surprisingly limited extent. In their Flora of Connemara and the Burren, Webb & Scannell (1983) reckoned that in those regions of W Ireland, "less than one plant in a thousand grows anywhere but where it was planted". In Fermanagh, RHN and the current author (RSF) equally roughly estimate this ratio is more likely one in 50,000! The reason for this is that nearly all the hedgerow Fuchsia bushes belong to a cultivar of hybrid garden origin, possibly triploid, and despite forming the occasional fleshy fruit, they are either completely sterile or almost so (Valentine 1978). However, there are reports of gynodioecy in some species of Fuchsia (ie where females and hermaphrodites coexist), suggesting that sex expression may possibly be unstable (see Richards 1997a, pp. 318-9).
Other workers have found that in two American Fuchsias, F. thymifolia and F. microphylla, 90% of the apparently hermaphrodite flowers are female sterile (although still bearing fully-formed female organs) and the plants are therefore functionally male (Arroyo & Raven 1975). Thus, the sexuality of Fuchsia species may well be more complex than appearances first suggest and the reason(s) for sterility is equally opaque. Probably in most parts of Ireland only a minority of hedgerow plants belong to the true species, or to a form of it which is capable of sexual reproduction.
In the FNEI 3, Hackney et al. also comment that, "some stands fruit abundantly, others hardly so". According to a short note on some Kerry plants (H1 & H2) by Donaldson et al. (1976), until recently Fuchsia seed was sold in agricultural seed merchants in that county, "for sowing along banks where it served as feed for both cattle and sheep". The current author (RSF) has never heard of stock eating Fuchsia anywhere else, nor observed any evidence of it happening, and is therefore sceptical of this aspect of the report. However, without him distinguishing the two forms that occur in W Ireland, both of which he was perfectly aware of, Nelson (1994) stated clearly that, "Fuchsia is a useful shrub for hedging fields, because cattle do not like eating the foliage and shoots." This is not to deny that when grass and other forage is scarce or rare and animals are near starving, they will eat almost anything to survive.
Reproduction and dispersal
In its native S American habitats, the bright red flowers of F. magellanica and its relatives are pollinated by humming-birds feeding on the copious nectar. In the absence of humming birds in B & I (for the moment!), the flowers are visited by hive bees and other insects (Valentine 1978, p. 121). When it is formed, the four-celled fruit ripens between August and the onset of the first frosts. It is a plump, burgundy-coloured fleshy capsule or berry containing numerous seeds (Hickey & King 1981). Presumably the fruit is edible and attractive to birds, but the current author (RSF) has not uncovered any mention of this in the literature, although Ridley (1930) details examples of various foreign birds and of Opossum dispersing fruit of the New Zealand species, F. excorticata, a plant which is only rarely grown in Irish gardens (Forrest 1985).
In B & I, we may be thankful that F. magellanica seldom spreads here by seed, since on the island of La Réunion, in the Indian Ocean, it is a much more aggressive invader, penetrating previously undisturbed native montane forest and forming dense stands therein (Macdonald et al. 1991). There is evidence to suggest that in W Ireland there is a tendency for self-incompatibility in Fuchsia, and the close presence of a second clone appears to be essential for pollination and fruit production (Nelson 1994). This requirement appears to be seldom met and, consequently, fruit set appears to be occasional in Ireland beyond the garden setting, the majority of Fuchsia shrubs planted in hedgerows tending to increase and diffuse slightly, and over many decades, by a minor degree of suckering to form clonal scrub stands.
However, since Fuchsia wood is brittle, and the slender, young branchlets are easily detached, eg being removed by passing human and animal traffic, a much more rare and sporadic form of vegetative reproduction occurs through the rooting of transported shoot fragments. This might enable a somewhat wider dispersal, but obviously it must chiefly occur along narrow linear habitats, such as paths and streams and be very occasional in its occurrence.
Whenever Fuchsia bushes do manage to produce seed, it is fertile and seedlings are occasionally reported (Nelson 1994). Seedlings are frost-sensitive and can only survive overwinter in sheltered sites in very mild areas of W Ireland. Thus, isolated Fuchsia shrubs are only rarely found, likely derived from occasionally formed, self-sown seed, almost certainly involving fruit eaten, transported and voided by birds. The bushes found locally in Fermanagh on the cliffs in Bolusty More townland, by Pollophouca (or Poulaphouca) waterfall, and on cut-over bogs near Knockennis and Farncassidy, are concrete examples of these very probably self-sown plants.
Cultivar 'Riccartonii'
By far the most common hardy Fuchsia in Ireland and Scotland is cv. 'Riccartonii', which is believed to have been raised in Riccarton garden near Edinburgh by a gardener called Young, sometime around 1830. The parentage of cv. 'Riccartonii' is still clouded by uncertainty, but it is said by some to be a seedling of a garden hybrid called cv. 'Globosa', which was raised sometime before 1832 by Bunney of Stratford. Cv. 'Globosa' is considered to be a cross involving F. magellanica var. conica from Chile, with the Brazilian species F. coccinea being the most likely other parent. Others feel that cv. 'Riccartonii' is merely a variety of the species, F. magellanica (eg M. Rix, in: Phillips & Rix 1989).
The hardiness of cv. 'Riccartonii', compared with other garden Fuchsias, was not appreciated at first, but when this property of the plant was discovered around the late 1830s it ensured its wider garden and landscape use (Bean 1973, Vol. II, p. 246). 'Riccartonii' can be recognised by its short tube, only about 8 mm long and its stiff 18-22 mm long spreading sepals (Phillips & Rix 1989). Its calyx is a richer crimson and its unopened flower buds are much fatter and globose than those of the true species, but less so than those of cv. 'Globosa' (Webb & Scannell 1983; Krussmann 1985). Nelson & Walsh pointed out that the fat flower buds of cv. 'Ricccartonii' are so bulbous, and the calyx so firm in texture, that they can be audibly 'popped' by squeezing them with one's fingers, a feat impossible with the other form of the plant (Nelson & Walsh 1991, p. 247).
When growing in hedgerows, F. magellanica cv. 'Riccartonii' prefers moist, peaty soils and either full sun or partial shade. When established and protected by its neighbours it can tolerate temperatures down to -15oC.
British occurrence
In Britain, F. magellanica in its various hedgerow forms occurs from the Channel Isles to Shetland. While it is frequent in W Scotland and along the S coast of England, elsewhere it is very much more scarce, scattered and coastal in comparison with its distribution in Ireland (Preston et al. 2002).
European and world occurrence
Forms of F. magellanica are also naturalised in the wild from planted hedges in the Azores (Tutin et al. 1968) and in New Zealand (Webb et al. 1988), where cv 'Riccartonii' is a very common relict of cultivation in old or long-abandoned settlements all over the country. As mentioned above, F. magellanica is a serious woody weed of native forests on La Réunion.
Names
The genus name 'Fuchsia' is named for Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566), a German physician and herbal writer who, of course, pre-dated its introduction to Europe and never witnessed the plant. The Latin specific epithet 'magellanica', refers to the area of the Straits of Magellan in S America, from near which the plant was first imported to Europe (Stearn 1992).
Uses
As children at play in Londonderry and Donegal, RSF remembers sucking the nectar from the flowers, and Vickery (1995) reports the same from Cos Antrim (H39) and Down (H38), where the common name given the plant was 'Honeysuckle'. In Co Donegal (H34 & H35), the flowers were boiled to give a dark red dye, and on Merseyside there was a tradition that it was unlucky to bring the flowers indoors (Vickery 1995).
Threats
None. Although naturalised to a limited extent and very persistent irrespective of origin, Fuchsia magellanica is mainly planted and not at all invasive.