In the north o f England and in Scotland, where stone walls take the place o f our hedges, they are frequently
richly clothed with the green*and scarlet foliage of this plant, which continues blossoming during a great part of
the summer.
The leaves are strikingly different from those of any other indigenous Geranium, and the calycine segments are
e s dissimilar to one another as those of the genus Rosa, a circumstance which I cannot any where find noticed.
These segments during the whole flowering of the plant are closed so as to assume a pyramidal figure, a peculiarity
which is rightly included in the Linnæan specific character, but omitted by some of our best subsequent
botanists. “ Calycibus angulatis eleroato-rugosis,” the character employed in the Species Plantarum, is more applicable
to the remarkable tooth-like tubercles with which the nerves of the segments are furnished, than that of
“ calycibus transversis corrugatis.”
In all the capsules that I have examined of this plant, I have universally found that each coccule parts from
the arista at the time of their separation from the receptacle, not remaining attached to it, as is, 1 believe, the
case in most of the species of this genus.—This kind of fruit is highly curious in its structure. Mirbel has classed
it in his third order of Fruits, which he has called by the inharmonious name of Diêrésilions, (Fruits simples qui ,
se divisent en plusieurs coques à la maturité,)- and his third genus, which he calls Dièrèsile. He defines most
strangely the characters of this, by telling us that it is a “ Fruit diérésilien, très variable, ne pouvant être confondu
avec le Regmate et le Crêmocarpe." (Vid, Elêmens de Physiologie et de Botanique, par Mirbel, 2de Partie,
p . 812.) What a pity that so acute an observer and so valuable a writer should load the science with names so
barbarous as these !
Mr. Graves found it growing abundantly in some hedge-rows near Dartford, Kent, together with G. colum-
binum. This habitat was first pointed out to him by Mr. Peet of Dartford, a gentleman to whom we are under
considerable obligation for valuable communications, particularly relating to the interesting family of Orchi-
deous plants.
I t begins to bloom in May, and continues in flower through most o f the summer and autumnal months. It is
a plant o f easy culture, appearing to the greatest advantage when growing on rock-work, which it contributes to
embellish with its richly-variegated foliage.