Description :

• Perennial shrubs, subshrubs, acaulescent geophytes, scramblers, climbers or annual herbs; stems erect or decumbent, mostly herbaceous, sometimes woody, subsucculent or succulent, sometimes viscid, variously hairy, often glandular, sometimes with persistent spine-like stipules or petioles
• Leaves alternate, entire to much dissected or compound, sometimes heteroblastic, variously hairy, usually petiolate, mostly glandular, often aromatic; stipulate
• Inflorescence : branches with normal or smaller foliar leaves; pseudo-umbels (1)2-many-flowered; involucral bracts present; peduncles of varying lengths
• Flowers irregular to almost regular
• Hypanthium present, including nectariferous tube, ± fused with pedicel, which opens at base of posterior sepal, hypanthium base often thickened
• Sepals 5, imbricate, connate at base, apices sometimes reflexed
• Petals usually 5, rarely 4, seldom 2; posterior petals 2; anterior petals 0-3; petals imbricate, unguiculate or sessile, rarely lacerate
• Stamens 10, connate at base, 2-7 fertile; anthers dorsifixed
• Ovary 5-lobed, 5-locular, rostrate; ovules 2 per locule; style of varying length; stigmas 5, filiform and reflexed
• Mericarps 1-seeded, tapering from apex to base, ending in a spirally twisted awn
• Seeds ± oblong-ovoid; endosperm lacking; embryo curved
• x = 11 (8, 9, 10) (high polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• The genus Pelargonium has been under revision by the research team of the University of Stellenbosch since 1974. This project, co-ordinated by J.J.A. van der Walt, has resulted in numerous publications by various authors. Most of these were published either in the South African Journal of Botany , Bothalia or Plant Systematics and Evolution . Not all of these references are cited here, and the reader is referred to Dreyer & Germishuizen (1993) for a more comprehensive bibliography

Nomenclature:

• Pelargonium L'Her.
  • L'Héritier: 417 (1789)
  • Harvey: 259 (1860)
  • Knuth: 316 (1912)
  • Van der Walt: 1 (1977)
  • Van der Walt & Vorster: 1 (1981)
  • Van der Walt & Vorster: 1 (1988)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 270, S, E and NE Africa, Asia, St Helena, Tristan da Cunha, Madagascar, Australia and New Zealand
• Southern Africa : Species ± 219, widespread but concentrated in Western Cape