''Pericallis cruenta'' ( syns. ''Senecio cruentus'' and ''Cineraria cruenta'') is a species of flowering plant in the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

, native to La Gomera and

Tenerife Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...

islands of the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

. It has a nonwoody growth form and is typically found growing in Tenerife's laurel forests. With ''

Pericallis lanata ''Pericallis lanata'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is endemic to the Canary Islands. File:Pericallis 89F09.jpg, Flower head A pseudanthium (Greek for "false flower"; ) is an inflorescence that resembles a flow ...

'' it is a parent of the widely cultivated garden plant ''

Pericallis × hybrida ''Pericallis'' × ''hybrida'', known as cineraria, florist's cineraria or common ragwort is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It originated as a hybrid between ''Pericallis cruenta'' and '' P. lanata'', both natives of the Canary Island ...

'', the florist's cineraria. In the past, and continuing today, there has been confusion and debate about the identity and origin of ''Pericallis'' × ''hybrida'', with ''Pericallis cruenta'' being incorrectly called a 'feral'

form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data ...

of the florist's cineraria. In 1895 in a series of letters and articles in '' The Gardeners' Chronicle'' and ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

'', William Turner Thiselton-Dyer argued that the garden plant ''Cineraria cruenta'' was derived by simple breeding from the wild plant ''Senecio cruentus'', while

William Bateson William Bateson (8 August 1861 – 8 February 1926) was an English biologist who was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscover ...

argued that it was of hybrid origin. The argument was resolved by Bateson, who enlisted Richard Irwin Lynch, Curator of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, to do some experimental crosses in 1897. Published in 1900, the results showed that the garden cineraria is clearly of hybrid origin. In fact, members of the genus ''

Pericallis ''Pericallis'' is a small genus of 15 species of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, native to the Canary Islands, Madeira and Azores. The genus includes herbaceous plants and small subshrubs. In the past, the genus was often included in e ...

'' had been brought to England in 1777 and 1780, and by the early 1800s had been extensively hybridized by horticulturalists. By the time of the debate, there were numerous cultivars displaying wide morphological variation.

References

cruenta Endemic flora of the Canary Islands Plants described in 1845 {{Senecioneae-stub