Flower Delights. Pelargonium sidoides, Black Pelargonium, and Honeybee, Apis mellifera, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

            The first scientific description of this dark-red to black-flowering Pelargonium is by Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828), whom I've often mentioned in these pages. The 'father of South African Botany' or the 'Japanese Linnaeus' collected plants in South Africa during his stay at the Cape 1772-1775 in the service of the Dutch East Indies Trading Company (VOC). He published his description of our Pelargonium under the name Geranium sidaefolium (1800 and 1823). Meanwhile the famed Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) was revising the name 'Geraninium'. In 1824 Candolle printed Thunberg's find as Pelargonium sidoides. 
Our Purple-Black Wonder has many common names among them African Pelargonium as well it might be called because it is so widespread in South Africa, growing nearly at sea-level to the heights of Lesotho at 2300 m. An obvious name, too, is Black Pelargonium. 
It's well-known among the peoples of South Africa as folk medicine against a variety of coughing ailments. And a report of around 1900 tells us that a Boer by the name of J.N. Uys of Rietfontein claimed that it can be used as a cure for worms in livestock, notably calves. There's even a recipe on how to prepare a medicinal potion to that purpose from Sidoides's roots and foliage. Hence its name in Afrikaans: Kalwerbossie. It's not something though, I think, our European Honeybee (inset) would relish; she's after pollen...
   

Taken in: Holland / North Holland / Binnenstad (show map)

Taken on: September 15, 2019

Tags:

J.N. Uys

European Honeybee

Pelargonium sidoides

Geranium sidaefolium

South Africa

Lesotho

Rietfontein, South Africa

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle

Carl Peter Thunberg

VOC

Dutch East Indies Trading Company (VOC)

flower

insect

honeybee

Kalwerbossie

Afrikaans

calves « less

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Camera: Olympus TG-3, f/3.4, 1/250 sec, 9.6mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Olympus TG-3
Aperture:	f/3.4
Exposure Time:	0.004 sec (1/250)
Focal Length:	9.6mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Creative (Slow speed)
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Version 1.0
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