PELARGONIUM basilicum.
Princely Stork's-bill.
P. basilicum, ramis erectis villosis, foliis rotundato-cordatis
acutiusculis subplanis cartilagineo-dentatis utrinque pilosis
mollibus, stipulis ovatis subdentatis ciliatis, pedun-
culis subquinquefloris, segmentis calycinis ovatis villosis,
tubo nectarifero calyce subaequali.
Pelargonium basilicum. Swt. hort. brit. addenda, p. 471. n. 405.
Stem shrubby, erect, not much branched: branches
rather slender, villous, thinly clothed with leaves. Leaves
roundly cordate, rather pointed, flat, or only a little undulate
at the edges, unequally toothed, with short but sharp
rigid horny teeth, hairy on both sides, and fringed; underneath
many-nerved, the nerves branching. Petioles stout,
flattened on the upper side, and rounded on the lower, villous.
Stipules ovate, sometimes toothed, densely villous. Peduncles cylindrical, villous, generally lucre 5-flowered. Invo
of 6 roundish ovate villous bractes, which are densely
fringed with long white hairs. Pedicles longer than the
bractes. Calyx 5-cleft; segments ovate, scarcely acute,
concave, villous, erect, or the points a little spreading, of a
dark green, tinged with brown. Nectariferous tube about
the length of the calyx, much flattened on each side, and
gibbous at the base, unequally villous. Petals 5, the two
upper ones between obovate and ovate, very unequal sided,
of a bright dark red, inclining to scarlet, with a black patch
in the centre, from which and below it are numerous black
lines, more or less branched, two-nerved at the back, the
nerves branching: lower petals oblong, with rounded points,
of a lighter colour, purplish near the base, the upper part