268 'OAK-LEAVED GERANIUMS'
by Pierre Gontier (19th C.)

This magnificent and very unusual Geranium is in full flower, - the very King of Geraniums. All hardy plants, these geraniums usually grow in pots or baskets and best placed in sunny or bright areas. The warmth of a windowsill indoors for the younger plants and best still in the Summer in larger pots make for a big show lasting for months. They live for years if well looked after and multiply from cuttings from the main stem.

Geraniums come from a group of 250 plants called "PELARGONIUM" and are believed to emanate from the Cape of Good Hope, in South Africa. Pelargos is the Greek word for stork because part of fruit looks like the long pointed open beak of a Stork, and Geranos is the Greek word for Crane, another long-legged bird with a similar pointed beak. The fruit on the different varieties of pelargonium suddenly splits into strips when fully grown and ejects a seed from each strip. These burstings can throw the seed up 20 feet away. There are three main types; REGALS, which have spectacular flowers. ZONALS which have leaves with bands of colour and IVY-LEAVED which have trailing stems and lobed leaves.

The Oak-Leaved variety seen here in this delightful painting is very rare and so-called because of its leaves resembling oak-leaves. There are so many varieties with different flower colours and leaves with scents of nutmeg, lemon and even peppermint. How many of us will sneak a quick pinch between the fingers just to find out which one it is? Like roses, they are favourites amongst everyone, but geraniums are found in almost every home because they don't need a garden. - From the crowded back streets of Venice there is a potted geranium on almost every step, to far away Finland where the Summer growing season is so much shorter, they are abundant in the windows providing a splash of bright scarlet and pink to each room. Such flowers make us all feel so good. They enlighten the days and help us to smile through our days more easily.

In this painting to add a little more colour, there is a pretty little basket containing a mixture of flowers of "SOLANUM" (Perennial Nightshade) and some pale pink fragrant roses. The smaller pot contains a spray of pansies (Violas).

The mixture of scents from this romantic arrangement of flowers and plants would have pervaded the room and brought pleasure to its owner. We can enjoy some of these delights today a hundred years or so since it was painted.

Pierre-Camille Gontier was a nineteenth-century artist who was born in Paris. He was known for his painting studies of flowers and fruits and first exhibited at the Salon in 1863.