This year, 2017, marks the 200th anniversary of the introduction of Sinningia speciosa into cultivation, although the species was classified under the wrong name for 60 years.

The story of how Sinningia speciosa came to be known as the Florist’s Gloxinia is generally familiar to gesneriad growers, and it bears repeating here: introduced from Brazil in 1815, the unnamed species was first published and illustrated by English nurseryman Conrad Loddiges in his Botanical Cabinet in 1817 as Gloxinia speciosa, and it soon became known as the ‘gloxinia’ in horticultural circles. The genus Gloxinia had been established in 1785 by L’Héritier for the type species G. maculata – known today as G. perennis – a tall growing species with scaly rhizomes that was originally grown from seeds sent to the Chelsea Physic Garden from Colombia in 1739 (Linnaeus had named it Martynia perennis in 1753). The flowers of S. speciosa do outwardly resemble those of G. perennis, so at least Loddiges was correct in classifying it in the Gesneriaceae. S. speciosa remained in the genus Gloxinia until W.P. Hiern transferred it to its correct place in Sinningia Nees (1825) in 1877. Over the course of 200 years, various authorities have placed S. speciosa in no fewer than six other genera (Gloxinia, Gesneria, Ligeria, Orobanche, Orthanthe, and Martynia), accounting for 38 discarded synonyms for this species, 37 of which are listed in The Smithsonian’s World Checklist of Gesneriaceae (http://persoon.si.edu/gesneriaceae). In addition to Loddiges’ illustration, color plates of G. speciosa were featured in two other publications in 1817, which must have had something to do with increasing demand for the plants and making the common name stick.
An exploration of the many European and American botanical publications from the 19th and early 20th centuries gives us an appreciation of how remarkably popular gloxinias were at that time, especially in Great Britain. John Sims, writing in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (vol. 44) in 1817, remarked that the species was “… already to be found in most of the large collections about town [London]”, and Robert Sweet included it in his book
But there is much more to the history of the florist’s gloxinia, thanks in large part to the internet and the ready availability of searchable texts through Google Books and other resources.
It appears that anything written about the history of the florist’s gloxinia from the 19th century into the early years of the 21st century cites either the 1815 discovery and/or the 1817 introduction dates for S. speciosa. However, all of these are without documentation. Fortunately, there is the online Allan Cunningham Project, which includes a biography of Cunningham written by Robert Heward and published in 1842 (Cunningham had died in 1839 at the age of 47). Here, we find a definitive reference to a group of plants collected by Cunningham and his partner James Bowie that were sent from Brazil to England. Included in this list are the species Gloxinia (Sinningia) speciosa and Gesneria (Sinningia) bulbosa, both of which grow in and around the city of Rio de Janeiro. Because Cunningham and Bowie were both employed as collectors by Kew Gardens, the two sinningias must have been sent there. Although several specimens of Sinningia from Cunningham and Bowie have survived to the present day, they all appear to be S. bulbosa, and S. speciosa is not represented.