PEDICULARIS 



PELARGONIUM 



1257 



commonly tufted, %-\ l A ft. high: 

 Ivs. mostly alternate, pinnately 

 parted, all but the uppermost peti- 

 oled: fls. yellow or reddish, rarely 

 white. April-June. Dry woods and 

 thickets, Nova Scotia to Manitoba; 

 south, Fla. to N. Mex. B. B. 3:180. 

 B.M. 2506. W. M. 



PEDILANTHUS(s7toe-<w;er). Eu- 

 phorbiticew. Mostly small succulent 

 shrubs, having the characters of Eu- 

 phorbia, except that the involucre 

 is irregular and enlarged into a short 

 spur on the upper side. About 15 

 species in tropical America. They 

 are easily grown with the fleshy Eu- 

 phorbias in sandy loam, well drained 

 and manured. Propagated by cut- 

 ting dried at the base, then inserted in 

 occasionally moistened sand. 



tithymaloides, Poit. BIRD CACTUS. 

 JEW BUSH. Stem 4-6 ft. high, green : 

 Ivs. lanceolate, 1-3 in. long, dark 

 green : involucres bright red, pointed, 

 declined, K-% in. long, in terminal 

 cymes: stamen and style long ex- 

 serted. West Indies. B.R. 

 10:837. L.B.C. 8:727 (Eu- 

 phorbia canaliculata). B.M. 

 2514 (Euphorbia carinata ) . 



P. mdcropus, Benth., with 

 whitish stems and minute 

 leaves, from Calif., is occasion- 

 ally cultivated. 



J. B. S. NORTON. 



PEEN-TO, or Flat Peach 

 of the South is Prunus Persica, var. 

 See Peach and Prunus. 



PEEPUL TBEE. Ficus religiosa. 

 PEIRESKIA. SeePereskia. 



PELARGONIUM (stork, because 

 the fruit is long and slender like a 

 stork's bill). Geraniacece. GERA- 

 NIUM of gardens. PELARGONIUM. 

 The person who wishes to study the 

 contemporaneous evolution of plants 

 may find his heart's desire in Pelar- 

 gonium. With great numbers of spe- 

 cies and many of them variable and 

 confusing in a wild state, with plant- 

 breeding in many places and con- 

 tinued through two centuries, and 

 with a large special literature, the 

 genus offers exceptional advantages 

 and perplexities to the student. Most 

 of the species are South African, 

 whence they early came into culti- 

 vation by the English and Dutch. 

 P. cucullatum, the dominant parent 

 in the florist's Pelargoniums, was 

 known in England as early as 1690. 

 The two originals of the race of zonal 

 or bedding Geraniums were intro- 

 duced into England in 1710 and 1714. 

 Early in that century, a half dozen 

 species were grown at Eltham, in the famous gar- 

 den of James Sherard, and these were pictured in 

 1732 in Dillenius' account of that garden, "Hortus 

 Elthamensis," a sumptuously illustrated work in quarto. 

 Even at that time, P. inquinans had varied markedly 

 (see Fig. 1698). In his "Species Plantarum," 1753, 

 Linnaeus described the few species which he knew 

 (about 25) under the genus Geranium. In 1787, L'Herit- 

 ier founded the genus Pelargonium, and transferred 

 many of the Linnsean species. L'Heritier's work "Gera- 

 niologia," a quarto, appeared in Paris in 1787 to 1788, with 

 44 full-page plates. Early in the nineteenth century,many 

 species were in cultivation in Europe, and experiments 

 in hybridizing and breeding became common. There 



covcineo Peixi. 



1698. Pelargonium inquinans (and a variety of it) as figured by Dillenius in 1732. 

 One-half size of the original plate 



seems to have been'something like a Geranium craze. 

 The experiments seem to have been confined chiefly to 

 the development of the show or fancy Pelargoniums, as 

 greenhouse subjects. The Geranium interest seems to 

 have culminated in Robert Sweet's noble work on "Gera- 

 niaceae," published in five volumes in London, 1820 to 

 1830, containing 500 well - executed colored plates of 

 geraniaceous plants. At that time many distinct garden 

 hybrids were in cultivation, and to these Sweet gave 

 Latin botanical names. His fifth volume is devoted 

 chiefly to garden forms of the show Pelargonium type, 

 to which the name P. domesticum is given in the follow- 

 ing sketch. The development of the zonal or bedding 

 Geraniums had begun in Sweet's time, and he includes 



