

Chapter XIII. 



Order XIII.— GERANIACE.E. (The Crane's-bill Family, including OxaMea?.) 



C'HAEACTEH OF THE OiuiEB. — Herbs, with loaves opposite 

 or alternate, and regular or irregular hermaphrodite tlowers. 

 Sepals. 5, free, imbricate, one sometimes spurred. Petals, 5, 

 rarely fewer, imbricated. Disk, inconspicuous or glandular. 

 Stamens, 10, hvpogy nous, the alternate ones often smaller or 

 imperfect, or without anthers ; filaments often connate below ; 



anthers, versatile. Ovary, 3-5-lobccl, or 3-5 carpels combined 

 in the asis, produced into as many free or connate styles, with 

 capitate or longitudinal stigmas; cells, 1-or more ovuled. 

 Fruit cajisular, 3-5-lobed, 3-5-valved, variously deliiscing. 

 Seeds with little or no albumen. — Handbook of the Xeiv Zea- 

 land Flora, p. 35, and Additions and Corrections, etc., p. 726. 



Description of the Order. — 



'f^/f»^ ERY lai'ge order, containing many genei'a absent in New Zealand, differing 

 a good deal in structure to some of which the above character does not 

 altogether apjily. The plants of this order are distributed over various 

 parts of the Avorld. They have astringent and aromatic qualities, many 

 of them are frasrrant, and some have an odour of musk. Tliev are some- 

 times tuberous, and the tubers are eaten. There are numerous hybrids 

 among the plants, and it is not easy to determine the exact number of 

 species, biit about 540 are recorded, which include the genera Erodium, Geranium, 

 PELARGONim, and Moxsoxia, as examjiles. The genera confined to New Zealand 

 consist of: — (1). Geranium, flowers regular, styles combined; (2). Pelargonium, 

 flowers u'regvilar, calyx with a spur aduate to the pedicel; and (3). Oxalis, flowers 

 regular, styles free, leaves 3-foliolate. The name " Crane's-bill," given to this family, is 

 derived from the long central l)eak of the fruit having a resemblance to the head of that 

 l)ird, and which is peculiar to the genera Geranium and Pelargonium. Botanists 

 apply the term " Pelargonium " to that section of the great family of Crane's-bills 

 which has irregular or unsymmetrical corollas ; those that have regular corollas being, 

 by them, called Geraniums. 



