Geranium. | XX, GERANIACED. 89 
Impatiens and some exotic ones. Sepals in the regular flowers 
5, overlapping in-the bud. Petals 5, twisted in the bud. 
Stamens 5 to 10, often united at the base. Ovary 5-lobed 
and 5-celled, with one or several seeds in each, all attached to 
the central axis. Styles 5. Fruit 5-lobed, the carpels opening 
or partially falling off when ripe, leaving a central persistent 
axis. In the genera with irregular flowers, these characters are 
much modified. (See Impatiens.) 
Geraniacee resemble Caryophyllacee and Malvacee in the twisted 
arrangement of their petals, but differ from the former in foliage as well 
as in fruit, and from the latter in the definite stamens. The species are 
distributed nearly all over the globe, but most numerous in the temperate 
regions of the northern hemisphere, and more especially in south-western 
Africa. The limits of the Order are as yet scarcely settled, some botanists 
excluding Impatiens, Oxalis, and Trop@olum, thus confining it to the old 
Linnean genus Geranium. - 
Flowers regular. 
Leaves opposite, cut or toothed. Carpels 1-seeded, round the 
~ _ base of a long-beaked receptacle or axis. 
Ten stamens . . . . : P ; % ‘ - . 1. GERANIUM. 
Five stamens . ‘ ; . 2, ERoDIUM, 
Leaves radical or alternate, with three entire leaflets. Receptacle 
or axis not beaked. Carpels with several seeds : ; st SOx Auw: 
Flowers irregular, with a large conicalspur . ° ° : . 4. IMPpATIENS. 
The Cape Pelargoniums, so frequent in our greenhouses, belong to 
Geraniacee. The South American Tropeéolums, including the common 
Nasturtium of our gardeners, are also very nearly allied, although some 
botanists now propose to remove them far away from the family. 
I. GERANIUM. GERANIUM. 
Herbs, with forked stems often swollen at the nodes, opposite, palmately 
divided leaves, and purplish flowers, solitary or two together, on axillary 
peduncles. Stamens 10, of which 5 shorter, but generally with anthers. 
Ovary 5-lobed, terminating in a long beak with 5 short stigmas on the 
top, the lobes being all whorled round the long-beaked receptacle. Capsule 
separating into 5 one-seeded carpels, which curl upwards, with a long 
elastic awn, detached from the beak, and glabrous inside. 
A genus spread over the northern hemisphere, with a few species in the 
southern, but always without the tropics. It is easily distinguished from 
all but Hrodium by the long beak of the fruit, which has given to the two 
genera Geranium and Hrodiwm the popular name of Crane’s-bill. 
Rootstock perennial, Flowers usually large. 
Peduncles 1-flowered . Sethas ° . " » lL. G. sanguineum. 
Peduncles with 2 (rarely 3) flowers. 
Petals deeply notched, (Flowers notsolarge.) . . . 5. G. pyrenaicum, 
Petals entire or slightly notched. 
Petals dark purple, very spreading or almost pee 
Points of the sepals very short. . 2. G. pheum. 
Petals bluish-purple. Sepals with long fine points. _ 
Pedicels of the fruit erect. Flowers numerous, corym- 
hose Behe qe blak wie sas Whe CMW So gig SRM Aree here Gre MRUDUCRCUER, 
