One Pointal. Five summits. Fruit furnished with long awns, five dry berries.
See Geranium grandiflorum, Plate XII.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Geranium foliis radicalibus; floribus umbellatis, diandris; petalis duobus superioribus punctatis; stigmata quatuor.
Geranium with leaves growing from the root; flowers grow in umbels, two fertile chives; the two upper petals being dotted; summits four.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The Empalement cut open, with the Chives and Pointal left on, (natural size).
2. The Threads cut open, to shew their number, and the situation of the two fertile ones, (magnified).
3. The Pointal, (magnified).
Perhaps amongst plants, there is no genus exhibits such varied and numerous species as Geranium; no one, in which the species are so allied in natural character, or so unfavourable to the sexual system, if some deviation from general rules was not allowed: the founder thought such licence necessary, and we implicitly follow him. Thus far we have thought proper to extenuate in the present instance; for should we follow Mons. L’Heritier, (as most of the modern correctors of Linnæus have done,) a new genus must inevitably be formed for this plant. Upon a close examination of the flowers, from a dozen different plants, invariably, only seven threads were found; two only with tips, and those placed immediately behind the shaft, whose summits were but four. This Geranium is rather tender, and requires a dry-stove heat to make it flower, which it will readily do with such assistance, in April; about the beginning of which month, this year, a drawing was made from a plant in the collection of Messrs. Lee and Kennedy. The roots or bulbs of this plant were first received in England by Thomas Johnes, Esq. in the year 1794, in whose magnificent conservatory at Havod they flowered the next year.[Pg 240]
PLATE 60
