A couple of years ago, E an I were at our nearby garden center, Watter's, when I spied a display of red geraniums. These were much larger plants than I feel I can afford, but there in the middle of all that true red shone a single plant with blossoms in that yummy color that we, who were teens in the fifties, called Lipstick Pink. I guess the other way to describe this color is to call it rose. I have tried many times to photograph this plant and the color never comes out true. It's always pretty though, so I have resigned myself to show the many colors it appears on film and to celebrate the size it's attained sitting on the floor of the kitchen pushing everyone out of it's way. This picture is close, but a bit too salmon.
Carl Linnaeus the father of botanical classification included these plants in the genus geranium, but in 1789 along came Charles L'Henitier who decided to differentiate these plants, originally from Africa, from the native species of geranium found in Europe and North America known as cranesbill. He called this genus pelargonium. Both cranesbill and pelargonium belong to the family Geraniaceae . Most gardeners still say geranium!
