Pelargonium alchemilloides

Pelargonium alchemilloides has a common name of pink trailing pelargonium. Trailing it does, but pink its flower are only sometimes. Often white or creamy white, they may also be yellow. A sprawling perennial, it seldom exceeds 30 cm in height, growing from a tuberous or stoloniferous rootstock and resprouting after fire.

The few-flowered umbel seen here has several buds that still droop; the pedicels will stiffen and straighten upon opening, improving presentation to pollinators. Some whitish hairiness is evident on all the outer parts of the inflorescence, barring the petals.

P. alchemilloides is very widely distribution in nature. This area ranges from the Western Cape coast and Eastern Cape scrubland to the north-eastern South African grassland, often in damp places. But that is not half the geographical story: Beyond the border this Pelargonium grows as far afield in Africa as Kenya and Ethiopia.

The plants habitat is varied. It often grows among scrub or grassland, in moist, stony and disturbed places, favouring clayey, loamy as well as sandy soils. The species is not surprisingly considered to be unthreatened in habitat early in the twenty first century (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Pooley, 1998; Blundell, 1987; www.fernkloof.org.za; http://redlist.sanbi.org).