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Cape Fuschia

Phygelius aequalis

Also called Northern Shadewort, River Bell, River Bells, Wild Fuchsia

Cape Fuschia
Photo: Wouter Hagens, Public domain

Phygelius aequalis is a semi-evergreen South African shrub, about 1 m tall and wide, grown for its long summer season of pink and crimson tubular flowers. In cooler areas it behaves as a herbaceous perennial and needs winter protection.

Family
Scrophulariaceae (Scrophulari family)
Grows as
Shrub, Perennial
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water regularly through the growing season and keep the soil from drying out, then reduce watering in winter.
Soil
Well-drained, fertile garden soil or loam-based potting mix.
Temperature
Comfortable in mild conditions; protect from hard frost, roughly below -5 °C.
How easy
Easy
Native range
S. Africa
Climate
temperate

About

Phygelius aequalis is a species of flowering plant in the family Scrophulariaceae, native to South Africa. It is a semi-evergreen shrub growing to 1 m (3 ft) tall and wide, with 25 cm (10 in) long panicles of pink flowers with crimson lobes and yellow throats. This species may be distinguished from the closely related Phygelius capensis by the fact that the flowers grow in a single plane along one side of the stem. The narrowly tubular flowers are up to 6 cm (2 in) in length.

The common names Cape fuchsia and Cape figwort attach to both P. aequalis and P. capensis, though they are not closely related to the true fuchsias, and "figwort" refers to several plants other than phygelius.

Other Phygelius plants

Cape-fuchsia · Cape fuchsia

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Phygelius aequalis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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