Geranium is a genus of 422 species of flowering annual, biennial, and perennial plants that are commonly known as the cranesbills. It is found throughout the temperate regions of the world and the mountains of the tropics, but mostly in the eastern part of the Mediterranean region. The long, palmately cleft leaves are broadly circular in form. The flowers have 5 petals and are coloured white, pink, purple or blue, often with distinctive veining. Geraniums will grow in any soil as long as it is not waterlogged. Propagation is by semi-ripe cuttings in summer, by seed, or by division in autumn or spring.

The genus name is derived from the Greek γέρανος, géranos, or γερανός, geranós, crane. The English name "cranesbill" derives from the appearance of the fruit capsule of some of the species. Species in the Geranium genus have a distinctive mechanism for seed dispersal. This consists of a beak-like column which springs open when ripe and casts the seeds some distance. The fruit capsule consists of five cells each containing one seed, joined to a column produced from the centre of the old flower. The common name cranesbill comes from the shape of the un-sprung column, which in some species is long and looks like the bill of a crane. Many species in this genus do not have a long beak-like column.

Cranesbills are eaten by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Brown-tail and Mouse Moth.

The species Geranium viscosissimum is considered to be protocarnivorous.

Confusion with Pelargoniums

Confusingly, "geranium" is also the common name of members of the genus Pelargonium (commonly known as 'storksbill' in distinction from 'cranesbill'), which are also in the Geraniaceae family. Linnaeus originally included all the species in one genus, Geranium, but they were later separated into two genera by Charles L’Héritier in 1789.

Gardeners and the horticultural trade often refer to true geraniums as "hardy geraniums", to distinguish them from the less hardy pelargoniums (generally grown as annuals in temperate climes), and most garden "geraniums" (without the 'hardy' appellation) are in fact pelargoniums (storksbills), as opposed to true geraniums (cranesbills).

Other former members of the genus are now classified in genus Erodium, including the plants known as filarees in North America.

The shape of the flowers offers one way of distinguishing between the two genera Geranium and Pelargonium. Geranium flowers have five very similar petals, and are thus radially symmetrical (actinomorphic), whereas Pelargonium flowers have two upper petals which are different from the three lower petals, so that the flowers have a single plane of symmetry (zygomorphic).

Cultivation

A number of geranium species are cultivated for their landscape value and for pharmaceutical products. Some of the more commonly grown species include:

• Geranium cinereum
• Geranium clarkei (Clark's geranium)
• Geranium dalmaticum
• Geranium endressii
• Geranium himalayense often sold under Geranium grandiflorum
• Geranium ibericum (Caucasus geranium),
• Geranium macrorrhizum (Bigroot cranesbill or Bigroot geranium)
• Geranium maculatum (Wild geranium)
• Geranium x magnificum (Showy geranium)
• Geranium phaeum
• Geranium platypetalum (Broad-petaled geranium)
• Geranium pratense (Meadow cranesbill)
• Geranium psilostemon
• Geranium sanguineum (Bloody cranesbill)
• Geranium sylvaticum

All the above species are perennials and generally winter hardy plants, grown for their attractive flowers and foliage. They are long lived and most have a mounding habit, with palmately lobed foliage. Some species have spreading rhizomes. They are normally grown in part shade to full sun, in well draining but moisture retentive soils, that are rich in humus. Other perennial species that are grown for their flowers and foliage include: G. argenteum, G. eriostemon, G. farreri, G. nodosum, G. procurrens, G. pylzowianum, G. renardii, G. traversii, G. tuberosum, G. versicolor, G. wallichianum and G. wlassovianum. Some of these are not winter hardy in cold areas and are grown in specialized gardens like rock gardens. Geranium x. 'Johnson's Blue' is a hybridisation between G himalayense (Southwestern China), with G pratense (European Meadow Crane'sbill).

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Camellia, the camellias, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are native to eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalaya east to Korea and Indonesia. There are 100–250 described species, with some controversy over the exact number. The genus was named by Linnaeus after the Jesuit botanist Georg Joseph Kamel from Brno, who worked in the Philippines, though he never described a camellia. This genus is famous throughout East Asia; camellias are known as cháhuā (茶花) in Chinese, "flowering tea", an apt designation, as tsubaki (椿) in Japanese, as hoa trà or hoa chè in Vietnamese and as dongbaek-kkot (동백꽃) in Korean.

The most famous member – though often not recognized as a camellia – is certainly the tea plant (C. sinensis). Among the ornamental species, the Japanese Camellia (C. japonica) (which despite its name is also found in Korea and Eastern China) and C. sasanqua are perhaps the most widely known, though most camellias grown for their flowers are cultivars or hybrids.

Camelias are evergreen and small trees up to 20 meters tall. Their leaves are alternately arranged, simple, thick, serrated, and usually glossy.Their flowers are usually large and conspicuous, one to 12 cm in diameter, with five to nine petals in naturally occurring species of camellias. The colors of the flowers vary from white through pink colors to red; truly yellow flowers are found only in South China and North Vietnam. The so-called "fruit" of camellia plants is a dry capsule, sometimes subdivided in up to five compartments, each compartment containing up to eight seeds.

The various species of camellia plants are generally well-adapted to acidic soils rich in humus, and most species do not grow well on chalky soil or other calcium-rich soils. Most species of camellias also require a large amount of water, either from natural rainfall or from irrigation, and the plants will not tolerate droughts. However, some of the more unusual camellias – typically species from karst soils in Vietnam can grow without too much water.

Camellia plants usually have a rapid growth rate. Typically they will grow about 30 cm per year until mature – though this does vary depending on their variety and geographical location.

Camellia plants are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species; see List of Lepidoptera that feed on Camellia. Leaves of the Japanese Camellia (C. japonica) are suceptable to the fungal parasite Mycelia sterile (see below for the significance).

Use by humans

Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, is of major commercial importance because tea is made from its leaves. While the finest teas are produced by C. sinensis courtesy of millennia of selective breeding of this species, many other camellias can be used to produce a similar beverage. For example, in some parts of Japan, tea made from Christmas Camellia (C. sasanqua) leaves is popular.

Tea oil is a sweet seasoning and cooking oil made by pressing the seeds of the Oil-seed Camellia (C. oleifera), the Japanese Camellia (C. japonica), and to a lesser extent other species such as Crapnell's Camellia (C. crapnelliana), C. reticulata, C. sasanqua and C. sinensis. Relatively little-known outside East Asia, it is the most important cooking oil for hundreds of millions of people, particularly in southern China.

Ecology

The camellia parasite Mycelia sterile produces a metabolite named PF1022A. This is used to produce emodepside, an anthelmintic drug.

Mainly due to habitat destruction, several camellias have become quite rare in their natural range. One of these is the aforementioned C. reticulata, grown commercially in thousands for horticulture and oil production, but rare enough in its natural range to be considered a threatened species.

Garden history

Camellias were cultivated in the gardens of China and Japan for centuries before they were seen in Europe. The German botanist Engelbert Kaempfer reported that the "Japan Rose", as he called it grew wild in woodland and hedgerow, but that many superior varieties had been selected for gardens. He was told that the plant had 900 names in Japanese. Europeans' earliest views of camellias must have been their representations in Chinese painted wallpapers, where they were often represented growing in porcelain pots.

The first living camellias seen in England were a single red and a single white, grown and flowered in his garden at Thorndon Hall, Essex, by Robert James, Lord Petre, among the keenest gardeners of his generation, in 1739. His gardener James Gordon was the first to introduce camellias to commerce, from the nurseries he established after Lord Petre's untimely death in 1743, at Mile End, Essex, near London.

With the expansion of the tea trade in the later 18th century, new varieties began to be seen in England, imported through the British East India Company. The Company's John Slater was responsible for the first of the new camellias, double ones, in white and a striped red, imported in 1792. Further camellias imported in the East Indiamen were associated with the patrons whose gardeners grew them: a double red for Sir Robert Preston in 1794 and the pale pink named "Lady Hume's Blush" for Amelia, the lady of Sir Abraham Hume of Wormleybury, Hertfordshire (1806). By 1819, twenty-five camellias had bloomed in England; that year the first monograph appeared, Samuel Curtis's, A Monograph on the Genus Camellia, whose five handsome folio colored illustrations have usually been removed from the slender text and framed. Camellias that set seed, though they did not flower for more than a decade, rewarded their growers with a wealth of new varieties. By the 1840s, the camellia was at the height of its fashion as the luxury flower. The Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis, who died young in 1847 inspired Dumas' La Dame aux camélias and Verdi's La Traviata.

The fashionable imbricated formality of prized camellias was an element in their decline, replaced by the new hothouse orchid. Their revival after World War I as woodland shrubs for mild climates has been paralleled by the rise in popularity of Camellia sasanqua.

Today many other camellias are grown as ornamental plants for their flowers; about 3,000 cultivars and hybrids have been selected, many with double flowers. The Japanese Camellia – often simply called "the camellia" – is the most prominent species in cultivation, with over 2,000 named cultivars. Next are C. reticulata with over 400 named cultivars, and the Christmas Camellia with over 300 named cultivars. Popular hybrids include Camellia × hiemalis|C. × hiemalis (C. japonica × C. sasanqua) and Camellia × williamsii|C. × williamsii (C. japonica × Camellia saluenensis|C. saluenensis). They are highly valued in Japan and elsewhere for their very early flowering, often among the first flowers to appear in the late winter. Late frosts can damage the flower buds, resulting in misshaped flowers.

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Anemone nemorosa is an early-spring flowering plant in the genus Anemone in the family Ranunculaceae. Common names include wood anemone, windflower, thimbleweed and smell fox, an allusion to the musky smell of the leaves. It is a perennial herbaceous plant, growing in early spring from 5 to 15 cm tall.

Growth

The plants start blooming soon after the foliage emerges from the ground. The leaves are divided into three segments and the flowers, produced on short stems, are held above the foliage with one flower per stem. They grow from underground root-like stems called rhizomes and the foliage dies back down by mid summer (summer dormant). The rhizomes spread just below the soil surface, forming long spreading clumps that grow quickly, contributing to its rapid spread in woodland conditions, where they often carpet large areas.

The flower is 2 cm diameter, with six or seven (and in rare occations eight, nine or ten) petal-like segments (actually tepals) with many stamens. In the wild the flowers are usually white, but may be pinkish, lilac, blue or yellow and often have a darker tint to the back of the 'petals'. The flowers lack both fragrance and nectar and it has been suggested by some authors that they are primarily self-pollinated, but it has also been demonstrated that they are pollinated by bees and other insects that visit the flowers to collect pollen (Shirreffs 1985).

Yellow wood anemone, Anemone ranunculoides, also known as the buttercup anemone, is a similar plant with slightly smaller flowers of rich yellow colouring.

Medicinal uses

The plant contains poisonous chemicals that are toxic to animals including humans, but it has also been used as a medicine. All parts of the plant contain protoanemonin, which can cause severe skin and gastrointestinal irritation, burning mouth sensation, burning throat sensation, mouth ulcers, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bitter taste in mouth, blood in vomit

Cultivation

Many cultivars have been selected for garden use e.g. Anemone nemorosa 'Allenii' which has large blue flowers. It has been awarded an Award of Garden Merit (AGM) H4 (hardy throughout the British Isles) by the Royal Horticultural Society, as have several of its cultivars (see below).

The RHS Plant Finder 2008–2009 lists 70 cultivars of Anemone nemorosa (AGM H4) available from nurseries in the UK. Some of those most widely available are:

• 'Alba Plena' - double white
• 'Allenii' (AGM H4) - large lavender-blue flowers, often with seven petals (named after James Allen, nurseryman)
• 'Bowles' Purple' - purple flowers (named after E.A. Bowles, plantsman and garden writer)
• 'Bracteata Pleniflora' - double, white flowers, with green streaks and a frilly ruff of bracts
• 'Robinsoniana' (AGM H4) - pale lavender-blue flowers (named after William Robinson, plantsman and garden writer)
• 'Royal Blue' - deep blue flowers with purple backs
• 'Vestal' (AGM H4) - white, anemone-centred flowers
• 'Virescens' (AGM H4) - flowers mutated into small conical clusters of leaves.

Anemone ×lipsiensis, a hybrid between A. nemorosa and A. ranunculoides, has pale yellow flowers; A. × lipsiensis 'Pallida' is the best-known result of this cross. It has been awarded the AGM H4, like both of its parents.

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