Geranium v Pelargonium

For many years these plants have created confusion and they are still sold by nurseries and garden centres wrongly labelled....

What Is A Geranium & What Is A Pelargonium? - YouTube

 

Geraniums are Northern Hemisphere temperate zone plants mainly dormant in winter, available in a range of colours, but not red.
Pelargoniums are tender Southern Hemisphere plants frequently from South Africa with a tendency to loud reds, quite often rather nasty smelling.
Please note I am somewhat biased.

 

My grandmother had tall Pelargoniums in her living room window. She called them 'Geraniums'. My Aunt couldn't stand the smell of the leaves, but my gran and I liked it.
She told me once that my aunt wanted her to get rid of them, and then she laughed ... she never would have done that.
After she died I took them, I quite like the smell

 

I've never grown Geraniums, I do have a few Pelargoniums, I assume that at one time the botanists put them both under the same name before realising they were distinctly different.
If you look at the seed capsules of both plants they are fairly similar.
Obviously growth habit is very different.

 

@Nigel, I would have thought you would have been interested in in some of the more obscure types of Pelargonium .

 

Another name for Geranium is Cranesbill. That's because the shape of the seed pod is apparently like the bill of a crane bird.
Geranos is the Greek word for crane.

I understand plants called Erodium were also included in the same genus (I think) I'll have to look that up later on ...

 

@pete apparently not quite, they started as Pelargoniums in 1738, then moved to Geranium about 10 years later and then separated again in the 1770s.
See here Pelargonium - Wikipedia

I haven't come across any I like that I might be able to keep alive.
I am a fan of hardy geraniums and erodiums.
I do have a couple of tuberous, summer dormant, geraniums that are growing now and flower about this time of year.

 

@NigelJ Ok, my assumptions were wrong, it's just how I thought it would have happened bearing in mind how these things seem to work.
I had a feeling you would have at least a couple of representatives.

Yes @Michael Hewett ,crane's bills, and Pelargoniums have the same seed head shape, I notice in Nigel's link they call them stork's bills.

 

A bit of information that may some day come in handy: Common name in Finnish for Pelargonium is Pelakuu. Cranesbill is in fact Cranes knee in Finland.

 

I love the smell of Pelargonium leaves. My ex's late uncle was the gardener at Braco Castle with huge lean-to greenhouses along the back wall of the garden. One of the sections had Zonal Pelargoniums all along the wall, floor to ridge and one of his regular tasks was just to remove the flowers as they formed. The whole thing was about 50 years old.
Unfortunately, new owners took over the castle and decided not to keep the heated side of the greenhouse heated over winter and they lost the lot that first year along with magnificent Magnolias and many other tender species.

 

I have nothing of value to add to this. Only that it does my head in that so many people call pelargoniums geraniums. Oh and that our local park always has massive beds of pelargoniums in summer, with not a single bumblebee to be seen anywhere near them, whereas my old neighbour who grew lots of geraniums in his garden always had plenty of bumblebee visitors.

 

@pete I thought exactly the same as you until I looked at that link.

 

My Pelargoniums have been flowering, on and off, all winter.

 

Like Nigel I can't stand the smell of Pelargoniums and not a plant I like anyway. On the other hand Geraniums are stunning when in full bloom and bees love them too.

 

I love Pelargoniums ... I have six foot tall ones, singles and doubles, and various standard and trailing ones. I don't mind the scent but T'other Half can't stand it. I had, nut lost a lemon-scented one and would like one again, or arose-scented one.