Lobelia splendens Willd. var. fulgens (Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd.) S.Watson

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘A native of Mexico, introduced by the celebrated travellors Humboldt and Bonpland: it is a perennial, and produces its flowers, which are of an inimitably brilliant scarlet, from July till the first frost cuts them off.’  [LBC no.1435/1830].  ‘Amongst the lobelias this elegant species claims altogether precedence; superior in colour even to the L. cardinalis, large in its flowers, tall in growth, and so easily cultivated that their abundance of beauty will ensure their admission into every collection.’  [ABR pl.654/1812]. 

Johnson’s Dictionary lists three garden varieties of Lobelia fulgens, multiflora and pyramidalis with scarlet flowers and Marryattae with purple.  ‘Lobelia fulgens multiflora is one of the handsomest plants that are grown for bedding.  It is not to be found in many establishments; but I do not know for what reason as it is easy to cultivate if properly attended to.  The plants are four feet high, and covered with blossoms which are of a fine rich scarlet or crimson.’  [Gard. Chron. 1852]. 

‘[Lobelia splendens] may be known from fulgens at first sight, although closely akin, by a smooth shiny surface, which in the other is clothed by a short close pubescence, imparting to it a paler opaque appearance, as if it were obscured by dust.  Splendens is a taller-growing plant.  The long familiar cardinalis, closely allied to both, has a corolla of the same form and colour but on a much smaller scale.’  [BR f.69/1815]. 

Lobelia fulgens is figured at BR f.165/1817.  Lobelia fulgens var. propinqua, said to be a hybrid between L. fulgens and L. splendens, is figured in Paxton’s Magazine of Botany.  [MB p.52/1835].  Lobelia fulgens was introduced to Britain in 1809.  [JD].  BM t.4002/1843 as Lobelia splendens var. atro-sanguinea.

History at Camden Park

Listed in the 1850 and 1857 catalogues [H.128/1850].  Desideratum to Loddiges, 6th January 1845 [MP A2933-2 p.28], the probable source.  At the same time Macarthur requested Lobelia splendens.

Notes