Lapageria Ruiz & Pav.

This vigorous, evergreen climber with very distinctive, pendent, bell-shaped, waxy flowers is endemic to the temperate rainforests of Chile, where it is known as copihue, and has been adopted as the National Flower. The genus only contains a single species, Lapageria rosea, which since its discovery in 1802 has fascinated horticulturists especially in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, the west-coast United States and in its native homeland of Chile. It is closely allied to Philesia. Together, these two genera are the only members of the Philesiaceae (Luzuriaga, previously placed here, is now considered to belong to Alstroemeriaceae – Angiosperm Phylogeny Group 2009). Philesiaceae is considered to be sister to the Rhipogonaceae, a family containing a single genus of shrubs and woody climbers native to New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand. The overall habit of Lapageria differs from Philesia in being a vigorous woody climbing plant rather than a rhizomatous shrub. They differ markedly in their foliage. When the Spanish botanists Ruiz and Pavon described Lapageria rosea in their epic publication (Ruiz & Pavón 1798–1802) they named it in honour of Napoleon’s Empress Joséphine, for her maiden name of La Pagerie, and doing so were linking her legendary beauty with that of the Lapageria flower.