Pelargonium bowkeri

Pelargonium bowkeri, commonly the frilled pelargonium or the carrot-leaved pelargonium, is a tuberous plant, one of the caudiciform Pelargonium species that stores water in a thick, underground rootstock. This rootstock is usually the only perennial plant part; the above-ground stems and leaves are deciduous, dying off in winter and resprouting in spring.

The upper, mature leaves are three times compound or tripinnate in finely feathery green, conspicuous when young. The first, lower leaves when sprouting are closer to a simple leaf structure with fewer marginal lobes and teeth.

Five narrowly elliptic sepals form the base of each flower. The flower body is longer than the pedicel on which it stands. There are seven fertile anthers on filaments of varying length in the flower centre.

The flowers are also of a feathery, shredded appearance, not often seen in Pelargonium. The petals are botanically described as fimbriate, i.e. having a fringe of hair-like or finger-like projections. Especially the lower three petals branch abruptly into narrow strips. They lack most of the initial unbroken or intact petal parts, the lower oblong blade near the base of each upper petal. The upper petals pair recurves, displaying frayed tips towards the back of the flower.

The flower colour varies among white, pale pink, purplish or creamy. Here they appear yellowish in a night photo. The upper petal parts not in tatters differ in colour from the rest of the corolla.

P. bowkeri grows in parts of the eastern summer rainfall region of South Africa, from the Little Karoo in the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape to the Kwazulu-Natal Drakensberg and Mpumalanga.

The habitat is mostly rocky grassland. The habitat population is considered of least concern early in the twenty first century (Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; www2.arnes.si; www.pacificbulbsociety.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).