PLATE CCIX. 



GERANIUM MELANANTHUM. 



Black-flowered Geranium. 



CLASS XVL ORDER IV. 

 MONADELPHIA DECANDRIA. Threads united. Ten Chives. 



ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. 



MoNOGYNA. Stigmata quinque. Frudus rof- |j One Pointal. Five Summits. Fruit furniflied 

 tratus, penta-coccus. 11 witii long awns, five dry berries. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTER. 



Geranium foliis lobatis integrifque, hifpidis, ob- 

 tufis ; calycibus monophyllis, laciniis line- 

 aribus; floribus uigricanlibus, dioicisj ra- 

 dice tuberofa. 



Geranium with lobed, and entire leaves, hairy 

 and obtul'e; cups one leaved, fegments li- 

 near ; flowers blackilli, with tiie chives and 

 pointals dilliniSt ; root tuberous. 



REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 



1. The Empalement, natural tize, the tube cut open. 



2. The Chives of a male bloffom, natural fize. 



3. The fame, cut open and magnified. 



4. The abortive Pointal of a male bloffom, natural fize. 



5. The fame, magnified. 



6. The abortive Chives of a female bloflbm, natural fize. 

 ". The fame, magnified. 



8. The Pointal of a female bloffom, magnified. 



This fpecies of Geranium has been given by Profeffor Jacquin in his Icon : rar. 514, and his Collec- 

 tanea 4. 188 ; from him, we find it collated by ProfelTor Martyn into his Edit, of Miller's Ditt. under 

 the article Pelargonium, 5g. But, as no notice has been taken by Jacquin of fo remarkable a circum- 

 ftance as this fpecies being Dioecious, or with male and female flowers on difl'erent plants ; we may be 

 led to fuppofe, that it has not flowered in Germany ; or that the fpecimens he had feen, were from 

 male plants, as he numbers the fertile chives as five, which could not have been difcovered from a 

 female fpecimen. Of five plants we had the good fortune to examine, which were all in flower at the 

 fame time, the roots of w hich had been imported from the Cape of Good Hope in the year 1 793 ; three- 

 were male, with five fertile tips, the pointals obfolete ; and two female, without the leafi trace of a tip, 

 in either blolTom, or bud. As the tips frequently fall upon the expanfion of the flower, in many fpe- 

 cies, the bud is the only fure fitus whence to determine this charafiter. It is increafed from feed, pro- 

 cured from female plants only, which are much more unfrequent than the male; likewife from the 

 roots, which, (like to thole of moll of the fpecies forming this link of the Genus,) are tuberous; form- 

 ing fmall bulbs of unequal fizes, connefted to the main root by lligiit radicles, and at a liltle diftance 

 from it: which, indeed, is the realbn we have not adopted the term rapaceous, or turnip rooted, 

 although it is a character which has been ajiplied to them by very able Botanilts, yet we think unad- 

 vifedly, or from their not having had the opportunity of examining them clofely; as, we prefume, this 

 term cannot with propriety be given to any root which is compofed of more than one body, as are the 

 Turnip, Carrot, Parfnin, Radlili, Sec. where it applies. It nnill be planted in light peat earth, ami kept 

 in the dr}'efi part of the green-houfc, where it will flower about the montli of July, (lur figure was 

 taken at Clapham in June, this year, from a male plant in tlie Hibberlian Colleilion. 



