Pelargonium fulgidum

Pelargonium fulgidum, commonly sometimes the red mallow and in Afrikaans the rooimalva (red pelargonium), is a succulent-stemmed, scrambling shrublet that reaches 40 cm in height, among dense shrubs up to 1 m. The old stems may be woody.

The oblong to heart-shaped leaves are variously, sometimes elaborately lobed with serrated margins. The blades are densely covered in soft, often silvery hairs. Leaf dimensions are 10 cm long by 7 cm wide.

The inflorescences appear above the leaves, from four to nine bright red flowers radiating in each umbel from the tip of a long dark purple peduncle. Flowering happens from winter to spring.

The species is distributed along the west coast from the Northern Cape near the Gariep River to the Western Cape as far as Yzerfontein. The photo was taken in the West Coast National Park during August.

The plants grow in sandy fynbos and succulent Karoo on granite slopes, mostly near the sea. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century.

This pelargonium is an ancestor of some red-flowered garden cultivars popular in the market. People used to eat the young leaves, some may still do (Manning, 2009; Manning and Goldblatt, 1996; iNaturalist; https://pza.sanbi.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).