Heart of Spring Glory. Pelargonium echinatum Curtis, Prickly-Stemmed Pelargonium, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Well, this pretty Pelargonium - just look at its yellow heart! - is named for one of my botanical heroes, William Curtis (1746-1799). A famous and enthusiastic English botanist, Curtis was the founder and edtior of a wonderful journal of Botany in 1787, Curtis's Botanical Magazine first called merely The Botanical Magazine.
In the 1795 volume, Curtis first desrcibed this Pelargonium. The colored drawing is of the white form. It seems this Spiny Stalk was already being grown in England in the 1780s, in particular at the Chelsea Physic Garden of what is today London. I don't know who first described this wonderfully purple variety. Here it is in all its prettiness in the Cactus Room of the Hortus Botanicus at Amsterdam.
Heart of Spring Glory. Pelargonium echinatum Curtis, Prickly-Stemmed Pelargonium, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Well, this pretty Pelargonium - just look at its yellow heart! - is named for one of my botanical heroes, William Curtis (1746-1799). A famous and enthusiastic English botanist, Curtis was the founder and edtior of a wonderful journal of Botany in 1787, Curtis's Botanical Magazine first called merely The Botanical Magazine.
In the 1795 volume, Curtis first desrcibed this Pelargonium. The colored drawing is of the white form. It seems this Spiny Stalk was already being grown in England in the 1780s, in particular at the Chelsea Physic Garden of what is today London. I don't know who first described this wonderfully purple variety. Here it is in all its prettiness in the Cactus Room of the Hortus Botanicus at Amsterdam.