Do you ever wonder about the ethereal glow that illuminates the heart of a geranium flower?
The bright glow seen emanating from the heart of the geranium is quite ethereal. I like to think of it as the soul of the flower making itself visible, but perhaps it’s just another strategy to attract pollinators to the centre of the bloom, forcing them to brush past heavily laden anthers and carry their pollen load to another flower for fertilization.
The name geranium is often used interchangeably to describe pelargoniums and geraniums, which both belong to the Geraniaceae family. However, the ‘true geranium’, or cranesbill, is a hardy plant with robust stems and foliage that thrives in cool climates, whilst the frost sensitive succulent leaves and stems of the pelargonium, or storksbill, are at home in the warmth. The word geranium comes from the Greek geranos, meaning crane, the slender and elegant wading bird. It refers to the shape of the mature seed capsule that resembles the beak of this bird. Similarly, the seed capsule of the pelargonium resembles the beak of a stork, thus the plant name comes from the Greek word pelargos, meaning stork.
The cultivar growing in my garden, Geranium himalayense ‘Rozanne’, is like a vine meandering over and around the herbs that share the same bed. It’s a lovely pop of dazzling blue purple amongst masses of tiny grey green thyme leaves and tall stalks of lovage with their bright celery-like foliage. The young petals on ‘Rozanne’s’ newly opening buds have a distinct ultramarine tinge, like a touch of the vivid blue of a lobelia flower, but as the bloom fully opens, it transforms into a vibrant warm violet that punctuates the sea of greenery, as if to say “Yep, I’m still here holding the banner, even though I’ve changed my clothes”.
Like many flowers, the geranium has evolved to stagger the ripening of the male and female reproductive parts to reduce the likelihood of self-pollination as this leads to a narrow gene pool and a lower chance of survival. The male stamens ripen first, opening the pores on their anthers to release specks of pollen that look like stars in the night sky. The long slender female ‘style’ remains closed during this time, its segments firmly fused, impervious to the odd pollen grain that falls gently on its outer surface.
As the anthers shed their load, shrivel and then crumble, the ‘style’ begins to peel open, like a monkey peeling a banana, and the five segments curl back on themselves to expose a sticky inner surface that is ready to catch any pollen from passing insects. And the bloom is so clever at preventing insects from sneaking into the lolly shop through the back door and not paying their pollen collecting dues, by placing a semitransparent film of silken hairs over the gaps between the petals at their base.
However, it’s the glow in the heart of the flower that intrigues me. Perhaps insects are drawn to the light at the end of their journey along the magenta guidelines, forcing them to make those final steps to ensure they brush past the pollen laden anthers? Or perhaps the stark contrast between the bright violet and white light is designed to illuminate the beauty of these flowers and lift the spirits of those who grow them?
Whatever the reason, the lovely geranium flower, like most of the natural world, is both amazing and mysterious, despite the abundance of botanical knowledge we credit ourselves with in the 21st century.