USPP440P - Fuchsia - Google Patents

Description

G, c, LODGE Plant Pat. 440

Jan. 14, 1941.

FUCHS IA Filed Feb. 7, 1940 INVENTOR, GEORGE C.LODGE.

06W, q @a/q ATTORNEYS,

Patented Jan. 14, 1941 UNITED STATES Plant Pat. 440

PATENT OFFICE FUCHSIA George G. Lodge, Painesville. Ohio, assignor to The Cole Nursery Company, Painesville, Ohio,

a corporation of Ohio Application February 7, 1940, Serial N 0. 317,735

1 Claim.

' Ohio and has other desirable attributes.

Fuchsias are a genus of decorative shrubs native to tropical America and long popular in the North as a greenhouse plant. Because of their showy flowers and graceful form they would make an ideal plant both for the herbaceous border and more formal planting but for their usual tenderness. It was, therefore, a primary purpose of the present inventor to originate a new fuchsia of improved color and form and which would grow as a hardy perennial without winter protection in a climate at least as severe as that of northern Ohio.

Success was obtained with a seedling of Fuchsia magellamca variety riccartoni originated in the vicinity of Painesville, Ohio, after a great many seedlings tested during many years had failed to survive the rigours of winter.

This new plant is an herbaceous shrub which freezes to the ground each winter, coming up in the spring from eyes formed below the ground level. It may therefore, to all intents and purposes, be treated as a hardy perennial. Established plants in northern Ohio attain a height of about two feet by the third week in June at which time the blooming season begins, and eventually reach a height of about three feet by the end of the growing season.

Established plants of three or more years of age show from twenty to forty stems from the ground, some of which attain a caliper of from inch to inch at ground level. From the third week in June until late fall or early winter the blossoms continue and increase until the plant is cut down by severe frosts. The resistance to frost is approximately equal to that of the hardy chrysanthemums so that the early light frosts are weathered without appreciable injury.

The bush is of strong, upright habit with graceful, somewhat pendulous branches and branchlets densely massed which at the height of the blooming season carry a great many blossoms hanging singly on slender peduncles from the axils of the leaves.

a typical plant of my new variety of Fuchsia The foliage is of a deep glossy green appearmagellam'ca variety riccartoni, much reduced, in full color and (Fig. 2) a branch tip bearing blossoms in various stages of opening on a somewhat larger scale. I

A detailed description of this new variety of fuchsia follows:

Calyx:

Color.-Rose Red (Ridgway P1. 12). Length.1%; to 1 Width-l to 1 /2". Sepals: 4. Corolla:

CoZor.Mulberry Purple at first (Ridgway P1. 11), changing to Aster Purple (Ridgway P1. 12) Stamens: Rose Red (Ridgway P1. 12). Anthers: Rose Red (Ridgway P1. 12). Styles: Rose Red (Ridgway P1. 12). Stigmas: Rose Red (Ridgway P1. 12). Corolla:

Length.- to A". Width.% to Stigma:

Length-About 6", slightly longer than wide. Style and Pistil:

Length.--2 to 2 /2". Anthers: Usually 8, length about to A;, flat 1% by Stamens: Usually 8. Length of flower from end of peduncle to stigma:

2%, to 2%". Peduncle:

Length-4 to 2'. End:

' Length.-1 to 1 Leaves:

Length-Generally l to 2", width generally /g to 1" ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, irregularly serrate, opposite or Whorled in threes. Petiole:

Length-V4 to /2. Stem: Pomegranate Purple to Bordeaux (Ridgway PI. 12). Stems and leaves: Glabrous. Note: These descriptions are based upon mature development produced on good soil with slight acid reaction in Lake County, Ohio.

The plant is easily reproduced asexually, as by cuttings. While it is realized that the characteristics of the plant of this invention may perhaps alter slightly due to unusual environment and the like, the characteristics of such plant as described, and particularly its hardiness, ty riccartoni herein described and illustrated, of clearly differentiate the same from all previousvigorous and upright growth, extremely florly known varieties. iferous, and particularly characterized by its I therefore point out and distinctly claim as hardiness. 6 my invention and discovery: GEORGE C. LODGE.

The new variety of Fuchsia magellanica varie-

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