FUCHSIAS

 Fuchsias were discovered in the Dominican Republic in the late 17th century by Father Charles Plumier, a missionary and botanist. He named it after Leonard Fuchs, a German botanist who had died 100 years earlier. The varieties we see today are the results of many years of careful hybridising. It is used as a medicine for various ailments by indigenous groups scattered along the Andes where the flowers grow in abundance.