"And so I hold the smallest flower
Some gracious thought may be;
Some message of the Father's love
Mayhap to you or me."
HERE we step on disputed ground. Are Geraniums Pelargoniums? Who shall decide when florists disagree? There are eminent names on both sides of the question. Mr. Henry Cannell of Swanley, England, a florist who stands in the front rank, and whose name has become so widely known in connection with New Life Geranium, of which he was the originator, jumbles up together under the head of Pelargoniums everything we on this side of the water class under the head of Geraniums. A veritable muddle he makes of the matter—that is our private opinion—we whisper it to you confidentially. Here is our yellow Zonal Guinea; our best scarlet bedder, Gen. Grant, and Wellington, and Mrs. Pollock, and Happy Thought, all called Pelargoniums, and yet are quite unlike in leaf and flower what we Americans denominate a Pelargonium; and, to avoid confusion, it is certainly advisable for us to adhere to our established distinctiveness. We quote from the Gardener's Chronicle of January 3d, 1880, a sensible talk on this subject, to which Mr. Cannell takes exceptions: "Pelargoniums and Geraniums—I think it would be as well to settle by authority the exact names of those flowers that seem to be indiscriminately called Pelargoniums and Geraniums. Botany has been described as the 'science of giving polysyllabic barbarian Greek names to foreign weeds;' but while some plants, Abies Mariesii for instance, are most carefully described, others, as Geraniums, seem to be called by names that do not belong to them, but to quite a different flower. I notice, both in your letter-press and advertisement, mention made of Zonal Pelargoniums; now I should certainly decline to receive Geraniums if I ordered Pelargoniums. I am old enough to remember that we had a parti-colored green-house flower of a violet shape that was called a Geranium, then came a lot of hardy-bedding-out stuff with a truss of red flowers, all of one color, followed by Tom Thumbs and Horseshoes which grow nicely out of door. Then we were told that we must no longer call those green-house plants Geraniums, that their right and proper name was Pelargoniums, and that those bedding-out plants were, strictly speaking, Geraniums. Now, however, the old name Geranium seems to be dropped for both, and the new name Pelargonium given to both, surely erroneously! Let us, however, have it fairly settled which is which, so that we may clearly and distinctly know what we are talking about, and not make mistakes either in writing or talking, in sending to shows, or in ordering plants."—James Richard Haig, Blair Hill, Sterling.
We will now give a part of a lecture delivered last spring before a Pelargonium Society in London, by Shirley Hibberd, a delightful writer on Horticulture, says Mr. Vick, from whose magazine we quote the following:
"A Pelargonium is not a Geranium, although often so called. The true Geraniums are for the most part herbaceous plants inhabiting the northern hemisphere, and the Pelargoniums are for the most part shrubby or sub-shrubby plants of the southern hemisphere. Let us for a moment wander among the pleasant slopes of Darley dale in Derbyshire, or by the banks of the Clyde or the Calder. We shall in either case be rewarded by seeing vast sheets of the lovely meadow Crane's Bill, Geranium pratense, a true Geranium, and one of the sweetest flowers in the world. In the rocky recesses of Ashwood Dale, or on the banks of the 'bonny Doon,' we may chance to see in high summer a profusion of the Herb Robert, Geranium Robertianum, with pink flowers and purple leaves, a piece of true vegetable jewelry. And, once more, I invite you to an imaginary journey, and we will ride by rail from Furness to Whitehaven, in order to behold on the railway bank, more especially near St. Bees, a wonderful display of the crimson Crane's Bill, Geranium sanguineum, which from July to September, forms solid sheets, often of a furlong in length, of the most resplendent color. No garden coloring can even so much as suggest the power of this plant as it appears at a few places on the Cumberland coast; even the sheets of scarlet poppies we see on badly cultivated corn lands are as nothing compared with these masses of one of the most common and hardiest of our wild flowers.
"Now let us fly to the other side of the globe and alight in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope, say on the vast desert of Karroo, where there is much sand, much sunshine, and little rain. Here, in the midst of desolation, the world is rich with flowers, for the healthy shrub that occurs in patches, glowing with many bright hues, consists in part of wild Pelargoniums, which often take the form of miniature deciduous trees, although in the valleys, nearer the coast, where more rain falls, they are evergreen bushes.