My Fuchsia boliviana Alba had a couple fruits that fell off upon a light touch. I ate half a fruit (not particularly good, perhaps I got a bad one), and isolated and washed the seeds from one and a half fruits. They are now drying. I have a few questions about the seeds and the plant.

1) Can I be sure the fruit was ripe? It never changed color and was light green. The fruits were reasonably soft. The seeds are medium brown.

2) Is it worth checking viability? I may send these out to a number of people.

3) How long are the seeds viable for?

4) Is the plant a cool grower? But can it handle Florida heat? I seem to find conflicting reports.

5) Is it quick from seed and worth growing this way? My plant is small and I don't have much material for cuttings.

From just what I've harvested it appears I will have >500 seeds. Plus I will have dozens more fruits just from this one inflorescence. I've noticed sellers on Ebay sell very small numbers of seeds. I assume this is because they have high viability and few people need 50 plants... If all works out I should have some seeds available for postage. I suppose my big question is whether I should distribute some now, or check and make sure they are viable.

Unless someone can think of a compelling reason to check germination first I'll go ahead and offer 25 seeds for the cost of postage and the bubble envelope, which I'll round to $2. Email me at ml_gw@live.com.

I gather this is one of the species most likely to be grown from seed. Following the progress from seed to flower (with photos if possible) under different conditions might be informative. I would encourage people receiving the seeds to report their progress in a separate thread.

Here's a picture of the inflorescence/infructescence, after the first 3 berries came off. They were larger (wider) than the largest ones currently present.

I do know the triphylla types are heat loving, so these ones might grow in warmer climates where others fail.