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Pelargonium

 
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Pelargonium
 
 
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Pelargonium is a genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 of flowering plant
Flowering plant

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of Embryophytes. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of Spermatophyte....
s which includes about 200 species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 of perennial
Perennial plant

A perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants....
s, succulent
Succulent plant

Succulent plants, also known as succulents or fat plants, are water-retaining plants adapted to arid climate or soil conditions. Succulent plants store water in their leaf, Plant stem and/or roots....
s, and shrub
Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
s, commonly known as geraniums or storksbills. Confusingly, Geranium is the correct botanical name of a separate genus of related plants often called Cranesbill
Cranesbill

Geranium is a genus of 422 species of flowering Annual plant, Biennial plant, and Perennial plant plants that are commonly known as the cranesbills....
s. Both genera are in the Family Geraniaceae
Geraniaceae

Geraniaceae is a family of flowering plants placed in the order Geraniales. The family name is derived from the genus Geranium. It includes both the genus cranesbill and the garden plants called geraniums, which modern botany classifies as genus Pelargonium, along with other related genera....
. Linnaeus
Carolus Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus was a Sweden botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern alpha taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology....
 originally included all the species in one genus, Geranium, but they were later separated into two genera by Charles L’Héritier
Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle

Charles Louis L'H?ritier de Brutelle was an 18th century France botanist and magistrate. Born into an affluent upper-class Parisian family, connections with the French Royal Court secured him the position of Superindent of Parisian Waters and Forests at the age of twenty-six....
 in 1789.






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Encyclopedia


Pelargonium is a genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 of flowering plant
Flowering plant

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of Embryophytes. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of Spermatophyte....
s which includes about 200 species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 of perennial
Perennial plant

A perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants....
s, succulent
Succulent plant

Succulent plants, also known as succulents or fat plants, are water-retaining plants adapted to arid climate or soil conditions. Succulent plants store water in their leaf, Plant stem and/or roots....
s, and shrub
Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
s, commonly known as geraniums or storksbills. Confusingly, Geranium is the correct botanical name of a separate genus of related plants often called Cranesbill
Cranesbill

Geranium is a genus of 422 species of flowering Annual plant, Biennial plant, and Perennial plant plants that are commonly known as the cranesbills....
s. Both genera are in the Family Geraniaceae
Geraniaceae

Geraniaceae is a family of flowering plants placed in the order Geraniales. The family name is derived from the genus Geranium. It includes both the genus cranesbill and the garden plants called geraniums, which modern botany classifies as genus Pelargonium, along with other related genera....
. Linnaeus
Carolus Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus was a Sweden botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern alpha taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology....
 originally included all the species in one genus, Geranium, but they were later separated into two genera by Charles L’Héritier
Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle

Charles Louis L'H?ritier de Brutelle was an 18th century France botanist and magistrate. Born into an affluent upper-class Parisian family, connections with the French Royal Court secured him the position of Superindent of Parisian Waters and Forests at the age of twenty-six....
 in 1789. Gardeners sometimes refer to the members of Genus Pelargonium as "pelargoniums" in order to avoid the confusion, but the older common name "geranium" is still in regular use.

History and use

The first species of Pelargonium known to be cultivated was Pelargonium triste, a native of South Africa
South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
. It was probably brought to the botanical garden
Botanical garden

Botanical gardens grow a wide variety of plants primarily to categorize and document for scientific purposes. Botanists and horticulturalists tend the flora and maintain the garden's library and herbarium of dried and documented plant material....
 in Leiden
Leiden

Media:Nl-Leiden.ogg is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands and has 118,000 inhabitants. It forms a single urban area with Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten, Valkenburg, Rijnsburg and Katwijk, with 254,000 inhabitants....
 before 1600 on ships which stopped at the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headlands and bays on the Atlantic Ocean coast of South Africa. There is a very common misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa and the dividing point between the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Oceans, but in fact the southernmost point is Cape Agulhas, about 150 kilometres t...
. In 1631, the English gardener, John Tradescant the elder
John Tradescant the elder

John Tradescant the elder , father of John Tradescant the younger, was an English naturalist, gardener, collector and traveller, probably born in Suffolk, England....
, bought seeds from Rene Morin
René Morin

Louis-Simon-Ren? Morin was head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation during World War II from 1940 to 1944, and was the first francophone to head of the CBC....
 in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
 and introduced the plant to England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
. The name Pelargonium was introduced by Johannes Burman
Johannes Burman

Johannes Burman , was a Dutch botanist and physician.Johannes Burman was the eldest son of the theologian Frans Burman and his wife Elizabeth Thierens....
 in 1738, from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 pe?a????, pelargós, stork, because part of the flower looks like a stork's beak.

Other than grown for their beauty, species of Pelargonium such as P. graveolens
Pelargonium graveolens

Pelargonium graveolens is a species in the Pelargonium genus, which is indigenous to various parts of southern Africa, and in particular South Africa....
 are important in the perfume
Perfume

Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, animals, objects, and living spaces a pleasant smell....
 industry and are cultivated and distilled
Distillation

Distillation is a method of separation process mixtures based on differences in their Volatility in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....
 for its scent. Although scented Pelargonium exist which have smells of citrus
Citrus

Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the family Rutaceae, originating in tropical and subtropical southeast regions of the world....
, mint
Mentha

Mentha is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the Family Lamiaceae . Species within Mentha have a cosmopolitan distribution distribution across Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and North America....
, or various fruits, the varieties with rose
Rose

A rose is a perennial plant flower shrub or vine of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae, that contains over 100 species and comes in a variety of colors....
 scents are most commercially important. Pelargonium distillates and absolutes, commonly known as "scented geranium oil" are sometimes used to supplement or adulterate expensive rose oil
Rose oil

Rose oil, meaning either rose otto or rose absolute, is the essential oil extracted from the petals of various types of rose. Rose ottos are extracted through steam distillation, while rose absolutes are obtained through solvent extraction or supercritical carbon dioxide, with the absolute being used more commonly in pe...
s.

Pelargonium species are used as food plants by the larva
Larva

A larva is a young form of animal with indirect developmental biology, going through or undergoing metamorphosis .The larva can look completely different from the adult form, for example, a caterpillar differs from a butterfly....
e of some Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera is an order of insect that includes moths and butterfly. It is one of the most speciose orders in the class Insecta, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterfly, skipper , and Hedylidae....
 species including Angle Shades
Angle Shades

The Angle Shades is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is a common and familiar European species and is often strongly Insect migration.This species has a wingspan of 45-52 mm and the forewings are very distinctively shaped with a sharply pointed apex....
.

Pelargoniums are believed to deter mosquitoes.

Garden geranium (Pelargonium x hortorum; syn. Pelargonium zonale) is one of the most common ornamental potted-plants, with over 200 varieties.

In 1988 the flower was described and illustrated in a comprehensive 3-volume work Pelargoniums of Southern Africa by Ellaphie Ward-Hilhorst
Ellaphie Ward-Hilhorst

Johanna Ellaphie Ward-Hilhorst was a noted South African botanical artist.She received her early education in Pretoria. After matriculating from Pretoria High School for Girls she started work in 1939 as a cartographer in the Survey Department of the Witwatersrand Gold Mines....
 with van der Walt and Vorster.

Cultivars

Species of Pelargonium are indigenous to Southern Africa and are drought and heat tolerant, and can tolerate only minor frosts. Pelargoniums are extremely popular garden
Garden

A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials....
 plants, grown as annuals in temperate climates, and thousands of ornamental cultivar
Cultivar

A cultivar is a cultivated plant that has been selected and given a unique name because of its decorative or useful characteristics; it is usually distinct from similar plants and when Plant propagation it retains those characteristics....
s have been developed from about 20 of the species.
  • Zonal varieties, also known as P. × hortorum, are mainly derived from P. zonale and P. inquinans.
  • Ivy-leaved varieties are mainly derived from P. peltatum.
  • Regal varieties, also known as French geraniums or P. × domesticum are mainly derived from P. cucullatum and P. grandiflorum.
  • Scented-leaf varieties are derived from a great number of species, amongst others P. graveolens.


Structural variations


Pelargonium leaves
Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
 are usually alternate, and palmately
Leaf shape

In botany, the following terms are used to describe the shape of plant leaf:* Acicular : Slender and pointed, needle-like* Acuminate : Tapering to a long point...
 lobed or pinnate
Pinnate

Pinnate is a term used to describe feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis in plant or animal structures, and comes from the Latin word pinna for "feather"....
, often on long stalks, and sometimes with light or dark patterns. The erect stems bear five-petaled flower
Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s in umbel
Umbel

An umbel is an inflorescence which consists of a number of short flower stalks which are equal in length and spread from a common point, somewhat like umbrella ribs....
-like clusters called pseudoumbels. The shapes of the flowers have been bred to a variety ranging star-shaped to funnel-shaped, and colors include white, pink, red, orange-red, fuchsia to deep purple.

In early 2006 a long-awaited yellow-flowered variety was launched. Called the "Guernsey Flair", it was supplied exclusively to the television shopping channel QVC in the UK, and all available plants were sold within a few minutes. The flower has a much yellower hue than the cream-colored varieties which some developers had called yellow previously.

Horticultural pelargoniums (as opposed to botanical, the wild 'species') fall into six major groups, with zonals subdivided further:
  • Angel
  • Ivy-leaved = hanging
  • Regal (or Royal) = French
  • Shrubby-leaved
  • Unique
  • Zonal - erect and bushy
    • Cactus-flowered
    • Deacon (mostly dwarfs, cf. infra)
    • Double-flowered
    • Fancy-leaved
    • Formosum hybrid
    • Rosebud
    • Tulip-flowered
    • Single-flowered
    • Stellar
    • Straight Zonals
    • It is also usual to classify small Zonals alternatively by size or odorous excellence :
      • Dwarfs (small)
      • Miniatures (even smaller)
      • Parfum-leaved


Diseases

  • Pelargonium flower break virus
    Pelargonium flower break virus

    Pelargonium flower break virus is a plant pathogenic virus of the family Tombusviridae.External links*...
  • Pelargonium line pattern virus
    Pelargonium line pattern virus

    Pelargonium line pattern virus is a plant pathogenic virus of the family Tombusviridae.External links*...


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