Pelargonium rotundipetalum

Pelargonium rotundipetalum was considered for recognition as a separate species at some time in the past. Today this is a discarded name, the plant probably part of P. carnosum. Or maybe of some other species!

It is retained here as an example of how things change (they never really stay the same for long) and how popular species names of our time will disappear, their offspring species, if any, sporting new sobriquets, labels, nom de plumes and identities.

The petals are white and quite a bit rounder (as the name suggests) than those of P. carnosum that can also be seen in this Album. The succulent stems look quite similar.

Some might say: “Why don’t they make up their minds?” They being the international botanical authorities who decide on the proper categorisation of taxa, i.e. what will be separated, lumped together and therefore what names will be recognised.

But there are intraspecies variations in all living things on earth. If there were not, we would all look the same and only age, injury, diet and dress would allow for distinguishing between one’s wife and the neighbour’s! And one might not know which kids to feed and which to send home!

Plant identification deals with countless decisions to differentiate and as many not to, a percentage will always be wrong as new species develop from existing ones, creating grey areas gradually from the existing ones. And two plants dont necessarily require different names as soon as regional conditions do things to their appearance.

Species changes develop over thousands, even millions of years. Every observer or scientist perceives but a moment, a small interval of the history in the evolutionary differentiation of plants that started off similar. And peoples minds change infinitely faster. But this is an unpredictable issue.