Pelargonium alchemilloides pink flowers

These pink Pelargonium alchemilloides flowers were seen in the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden during January.

The long peduncle holds the pseudo-umbel of flowers erectly. Some pointed, yellow-brown bracts can be seen around the base of the short pedicels below the long flower tubes. These tubes are also known as the hypanthium channels that end at the top where the dark red, pointed sepals subtend the pink corollas. There is a kink where pedicel meets tube or channel.

The paired upper petals are roundly notched at their tips, dark-striped from their bases. The three lower petals are slightly smaller and lack the bolder stripe colouring, sometimes totally unmarked.

Branched, purplish style-tips can be discerned, more clearly than stamens in what must be old flowers; their mates in the umbel only retaining the maroon, pointed sepals (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2009; iNaturalist).