Fuchsia bracelinae
Distribution: Endemic to the highest peaks of the Serra do Caparao (Pico da Bandeira, Pico do Cristal, Pico do Cruzeiro, and Pico do Calcado) along the border of the states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo. Grows in open campo above treeline, between 2,280 and 2,850 m, most common at 2,700-2,800 m.
Habit: Few- to many-branched subshrubs 10-60 cm tall, or occasionally scandent shrubs to 2 m high in dense shrubbery. Branchlets terete, generally reddish purple, densely pilose with erect, whitish hairs ca. 1 mm long; older branches with freely exfoliating bark.
Leaves: Leaves 3-5-verticillate, membranous, narrowly elliptic-lanceolate, 20-50 mm long, 7-1 7 mm wide, apex narrowly acute, base rounded, green and slightly strigose above with conspicuously impressed veins, paler and usually purple-flushed below and densely pilose on the sulcate veins and margins; margin subentire to gland-denticulate, secondary veins 4-7 per side. Petioles green to reddish, pilose, 1-3 mm long. Stipules lanceolate, with a thick base, 1.5-2 mm long, adjacent ones often fused basally, subpersistent.
Flowers: Flowers solitary in upper leaf axils, pedicels slender, pilose, pendulous, 12-20 mm long, ovary oblong, strigillose to pilose, 4.5-8 mm long, 2-3 mm wide, floral tube cylindrical-fusiform, 3.5-7 mm long, 2-4 mm wide, lightly strigillose to pilose outside, glabrous inside, nectary 2.5-3.5 mm high, ca. 1 mm thick and slightly ridged, sepals 19-26 mm long, narrowly lanceolate to elliptic-ovate, connate at the base for 3-5(-6) mm, free lobes 5-8 mm wide at the base, apex acuminate, spreading at anthesis. Tube and sepals light red to pink, petals deep violet, broadly obovate, 10-15 mm long, 6.59 mm wide, apex rounded, filaments reddish purple, 24-30 mm and 17-21 mm long, anthers elliptic, 2.5-3 mm long, 1.2-1.6 mm wide, style light red, glabrous, stigma reddish, clavate to subglobose, 1.5-3 mm long, 1-1.5 mm wide, exserted 5-14 mm beyond the anthers.
Fruit: Young fruits oblong, mature ones not seen.
Chromosomes: Gametic chromosome number n = 22.
Notes: Flowers in the summer, principally from November until March.