Part 14

PELARGONIUM LEAVES.

Some of the pelargoniums decorate their leaves with horseshoes. All are in the habit of folding their leaves fan-like in the bud. When they grow large these folds straighten out. It is a good thing to be folded up fan-like in the bud; the leaf then takes up less room, and is kept snug and safe until it grows strong enough to care for itself. The pelargonium indulges in large stipules. These are green, leaf-like bodies growing on the leaf stalk where it is attached to the stem of the plant. They fold over the young leaf and protect it; but after the leaf comes out of the motherly arms of the stipules and stands up on a long stem, the work of the stipules is done, and gradually they fade and wither away.

Most pelargonium leaves are covered with a fine coat of hairs. In the warm countries where pelargoniums grow wild they need a coat of down to prevent the sun from scorching them.

As long as there is plenty of water in the leaves the sun cannot harm them, no matter how warmly it shines; but if it can draw out the water, then the leaf must fade. The coat of hairs for one thing prevents the water from evaporating too rapidly. Thus the pelargonium does not wear its fuzzy coat to protect it from the cold, but from the sun. The hairs also prevent the rain or dew from stopping up the breathing pores of the leaf.

Most pelargonium leaves have a habit of using perfumery of one kind or another. They make it themselves out of the food they find in the earth and the air. The rose geraniums we think are particularly successful in this respect.

Why do you suppose the pelargoniums perfume their leaves?

Perhaps it is to prevent animals from grazing them, for animals do not like to eat strong-scented things, even if to our senses the odor is agreeable. If this is the reason, we are glad the pelargoniums selected a perfume that we can enjoy.

We think there may be some such reason for the fragrance of the pelargonium, because plants are never wasteful. They make only what will be useful to them in some way. They love to be beautiful, but are never satisfied unless theirs is a useful beauty. The fragrance of the leaves, however, may be due to some cause and useful for some purpose that we know not of.

THE GERANIUM FAMILY.

The Geranium People are rather unsettled as to their relatives—or, rather, we are somewhat confused on the subject. Probably the geraniums know all about it, but they will not tell the botanists, so the botanists have to do the best they can by themselves.

Some say the tropæolum belongs to the Geranium Family, and it certainly does bear quite a strong family resemblance to the geraniums.

They also say the Impatiens Family is a branch of the geraniums and the pelargoniums, which you know we always call geraniums. The crane’s bills and herb Roberts and all their near relations of course are geraniums, and some say the wood sorrels belong to this distinguished family.

Whether these all belong to one family or not, one thing is certain: they are all agreeable to us, and are not so very numerous even when taken all together. The whole of them do not number half so many as do the branches of the Convolvulus Family.

Like the race of white people, they belong principally to temperate climates.

They do not all belong to our climate, however.

The nasturtiums, for instance, are South Americans and Mexicans. They like to keep warm better than some other members of their family, and their seeds cannot, as a rule, live through our cold winters. But if we gather the seeds and put them away out of the fierce winter cold and plant them in the spring, then the nasturtiums will grow their best and please us with their bright flowers. We cannot help liking them, they are so jolly with their gay flowers and their round leaves with twisting stalks.

We like them, too, because the flower stem curls up and draws the seeds under the leaves out of the way of the young buds that are waiting to bloom.

I do not know whether wild nasturtiums are as large and bright as the cultivated ones. Very likely not, as people have taken great pains to make them large and bright by selecting the seeds of the largest flowers from year to year and giving them good soil in which to grow.

Perhaps the members of the Geranium Family we really know best are the pelargoniums from the Cape of Good Hope. It is about as warm in their African home as it is in our Florida, so of course they cannot live out of doors through our cold Northern winters. But we take them in the house when cold weather comes, and sometimes put them in the cellar.

Of course they do not grow much in the cellar, but they rest there, and when they are taken out in the spring are all ready to wake up and blossom.

The whole Geranium Family seems to take extra care of its seeds.

We know how the nasturtium curls up its stem so as to draw the seeds below the leaves out of the way, giving the buds a chance to come out, and also protecting the seeds.

The pelargoniums do not do that, but they do something much more elaborate for the sake of their seed-children, as we know. They give them a parachute to fly with, for one thing. A parachute, you know, is a contrivance by which bodies can be sustained in the air while falling or blowing along in the wind.

But the parachute is not all,—they give them an auger by which to bore into the ground and plant themselves.

The North American crane’s bill seeds perform in a very similar way, their flowers and seed-cases being quite like those of the pelargonium.

How do you suppose North American crane’s bills came to be like South African pelargoniums?

This is a matter which needs investigating.

The pelargoniums are not as juicy as the nasturtiums, but they are somewhat juicy, and their juice has a slightly acid taste instead of being pungent, like the nasturtium juice.