Fructus rostratus, penta-coccus.
One Pointal. Five Summits.
Fruit furnished with long awns, five dry berries.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Geranium foliis ovatis, plicatis, erectis, serratis, tomentosis; floribus pentandris; filamentia duobus superioribus revolutis, ciliatis.
Geranium with egg-shaped leaves, plaited, upright, sawed, and downy; flowers with five fertile chives; the two upper threads rolled back and fringed.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The Empalement.
2. The Chives and Pointal, natural size.
3. The Chives cut open, magnified.
4. The Pointal, and Seed-bud.
The Downy-leaved Geranium, according to the Hort. Cantab. of Mr. Donn, introduced from the Cape of Good Hope, in the year 1794, is a dwarf growing, and rather delicate species, of this extended and very mutable tribe of plants; producing its flowers about the month of August. It is to be increased from the seeds, which sometimes ripen; or by cuttings, taken off in the month of March, and placed on a gentle hotbed; but if delayed to be made till much later, it will be found difficult to propagate by this mode. Less of dung and more loam, than is necessary for most Geraniums, will preserve this plant best through the winter; in which season, it should be kept in a dry and airy part of the greenhouse, to avoid the damps, which otherwise, often prove fatal to it.
That the charm of novelty, however erroneous or absurd, has found at all times its votaries, we have daily experience; therefore cannot wonder at, though we may regret its consequent influence on the many, who wish to signalize themselves, under its delusive banner. This observation naturally obtruded on our imagination, upon the perusal of the last Number of the Bot. Mag. where the Kidney-leaved Crane’s-bill is mentioned as “one of the rarest of the Geranium tribe;� are we to understand Geranium in this place as a new title for a natural order of plants; or, as solely confined to one Genus? Poor Geranium! although thou hast been so long excluded from thy station, in scientific English, yet shalt thou not lose thy due weight, against all thy opponents, in pure descriptive English prose; and perhaps some day may be deemed, by the learned, worthy a place amongst English Genera. With Mr. Donn, we humbly conceive the old title Crane’s-bill, as ill adapted to the three Genera of M. L’Heritier; and that, if new Latin names are to be foisted on us, for plants already well known, and settled, by that great master of the science, Linnæus; to whose opinion ours shall ever bow, English ones consonant, should be likewise adopted; and that Heron’s-bill for Erodium, Stork’s-bill for Pelargonium, and Crane’s-bill for Geranium, will prove no greater puzzle to the English Botanist. Unfortunately we are, and have been, so attached to old fashions, that we still mean to continue the title Geranium, as it is apparently best understood; whether, in English or Latin, descriptive, or scientific; as long as the public shall continue so honourably to patronize the Botanist’s Repository.[Pg 467]