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Geranium Reichardi or Dwarf
Geranium
Geranium Reichardi. Dwarf Geranium
Class and Order
Monadelphia Decandria
General Character
Monogynia. Stigmata 5. Fructus rostratus, 5-coccus
Specific Character and Synonyms
GERANIUM Reichardi scapis unifloris, floribus pentandris, foliis
subreniformibus inciso-crenatis.
GERANIUM Reichardi scapis unifloris, foliis plerisque oblongis
trilobis vel quinquelobis inciso-crenatis. Linn. Syst. Vegetab.
ed. Murr. 14. p. 618.
This species of Geranium, so strikingly different from all others at
present cultivated in our gardens, has been known for several years
to the Nursery-men in the neighborhood of London, by the name of
acaule, a name we should gladly have retained, had not Professor
Murray described it in the 14th edition of Linnĉus's Systema
Vegetabilium, under the name of Reichardi, a name he was disposed to
give it in compliment to a French gentleman, who first discovered it
in the island of Minorca, and introduced it into the gardens of
France.
Linnĉus describes many of the Geraniums, as having only five antheae,
though several of those he thus describes have to our certain
knowledge ten, the five lowermost of which shedding their pollen
first, often drop off, and leave the filaments apparently barren:
but in this species (with us at least) there never are more than
five, but betwixt each stamen, there is a broad pointed barren
filament or squamula, scarcely to be distinguished by the naked eye.
The usual and best practice is to make a green-house plant of this
species, though it has been known to remain in the open ground,
during a mild winter, unhurt.
It continues to have a succession of blossoms during the greatest
part of the summer, and may be propagated either by seed or parting
its roots.
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