F. decidua

F. decidua is a rare, often epiphytically living fuchsia from Mexico. This name was given by Paul Standley in 1929. This plant has only recently been rediscovered in Mexico. Epiphytic means: living on trees or branches, but not parasitic. The plant has thick fleshy (rhizome with tubers) roots. In the dry season, this plant loses all its leaves for a few months, the plant is therefore deciduous, hence the name “decidua”. After the dry period, when it starts to rain again, the flowers appear on the bare wood, before the leaves appear. F. decidua flowers with clusters of pink-red flowers at the ends of the bare young side shoots. After flowering, it starts to sprout with beautifully colored leaves, which turn green again later in the season. It requires a lot of sun, a very airy soil and not too much water.

• Pedicel : slender, glabrous, 6-11mm long,-15mm in fruit
• Ovary :
• Tube color : reddish pink
• Tube shape : narrowly funnelform, glabrous to sparsely strigose outside, glabrous within
• Tube dimensions : 30-48mm long x 1.5-3.5mm wide at base, then slightly constricted above nectary and gradually widened above until 5-9mm wide at rim
• Sepal color upper : reddish pink
• Sepal color lower :
• Sepal shape : lance-oblong, spreading to suberect at anthesis
• Sepal tips : obtuse
• Sepal dimensions : 8-13mm long x 3-6mm wide
• Corolla opening color : red
• Corolla mature color :
• Corolla shape : fleshy, oval to reniform, erect
• Corolla silhouette :
• Petal margins :
• Corolla dimensions : 1.5-3.5mm long x 1.5-4mm wide
• Nectary : a smooth yellow green band 3-5mm high lining the base of the tube
• Stamens :
• Filaments : antisepalous 10-17mm long, antipetalous 5-12mm long
• Anthers : 1.5-3mm long x 1-2mm wide

• Pistil :
• Style : slender, 55-66 mm long
• Stigma : green, slender, 1-1.5mm long x ca. 1mm thick

• Flower : single
• Flowers : numerous and held in compact, lateral panicles on new shoots arising from the nodes of older stems, the rachis 2 to 6 cm long, drooping, flowering when leafless (December-may)
• Flower size :
• Flower display :
• Flower bud :
• Fruit : ellipsoid, 8-12mm long x 4-6mm wide, glabrous, greenish purple
• Seed : 1.5-2mm long x 0.5-1mm wide, ovate

• Habit : shrub, terrestrial, in rock crevices, or epiphytic in trees as high as 10 m above the ground, with fleshy tubers 2 to 4 cm thick and stoloniferous lateral shoots
• Hardiness:
• Height : 0.5-2 m
• Light/Climate :
• Optimal light conditions :
• Remarks : flowers appear during the dry season from December to May on the previous season’s leafless branches. F. decidua is easily distinguished from the other two species in this section due its leafless dry-season flowering and tiny, thick petals.
• Named :
• Lookalikes :

• Year (of first description) : 1929
• Botanist : Standley
• Authors : Standley 1929. Breedlove, Berry & Raven 1982
• Original publication : Publ. Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Bot. Ser. 4: 248 1929
• Habitat : rare in moist oak-pine and evergreen cloud forests in the Sierra Madre Occidental from Jalisco to Oaxaca
• Elevation : 1465-3000
• Native country : Mexico
• Synonyms :
• Gametic chromosome number n = 11

• Leaves : opposite, chartaceous, sparsely strigillose above, glabrous below, deciduous, leafy in the wet season (June-November), petiole glabrous to strigillose, 3 to 5 cm long. the stipules are triangular, 1 to 1.5 mm long, about 0.5 mm wide, and deciduous
• Foliage color upper side :
• Foliage color lower side :
• Leaf dimensions : 9-17cm long x 5-8cm wide

• Leaf shape : elliptic to ovate-cordate
• Leaf margin : subentire to denticulate
• Leaf tip : acute to acuminate
• Leaf base : cuneate to cordate
• Pubescence :

• Veins :
• Stems :
• Branches : branchlets 5 to 15 cm long, 3 to 6 mm thick, subquadrangular, glabrous, older branches 0.5 to about 3 m long, 6 to 20 mm thick, with very loosely peeling, copper brown bark