[Named by Plumier after Michel Begon, a French promoter of botany, 1638–1710.] A genus of succulent under-shrubs and herbaceous plants, mostly of tropical nativity, having flowers without petals but with colored perianths, and often richly colored foliage, for the sake of which many species are cultivated as ornamental plants. Said by Loudon to have been introduced into Great Britain from Jamaica in 1777, but little cultivated before 1840.
1751. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v. The great purple begonia with auriculated leaves.
1881. Miss Braddon, Asph., I. 304. All the tribe of begonias, and house-leeks, newly bedded out.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 7 Sept., 4/1. The well-known Begonias and Fuchsias; which have … withstood the late storms better than any of their rarer rivals.
