geranium mascatense

[mohina macker]

geranium mascatense

near chakki mor, himachal pradesh

second week of march

regards

mohina macker

[Nidhan Singh]

Very beautiful flower..with a dark purple centre...

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Regards,

Dr. Nidhan Singh
Department of Botany
I.B. (PG) College
Panipat-132103 Haryana
Ph.: 09416371227

[chrischa...@btinternet.com]

There seems to be different interpretations of Geranium mascatense and G.ocellatum.

'The Plant List' gives G.ocellatum as a synonym of the former.  Whereas Nasir in 'Flora of Pakistan' separates the two.  Stewart does not list G,mascatense

at all but has G.ocellatum var. himalaicum as common from 300-1800m.  Nasir, on the other hand, says that G.mascatense is only sparingly recorded from Pakistan and then only in Baluchistan.

G.mascatense is recorded from Africa and the Gulf - so Baluchistan fits OK with this.   Collet had G.ocellatum in hill districts of N.India from same altitudes as Stewart.  IF they constitute separate species, I find it somewhat surprising to have G.mascatense in the Himalayan foothills.

I do not know on whose authority G.ocellatum has been sunk into G.mascatense.  According to Nasir the species are very close but G.mascatense has puberulous mericarps - translating that into English:  in Geranium the dry fruits consists of 5 'mericarps' each with a seed, which may be explosively dispersed though sometimes remains inside) the 'puberulous' part means downy with very short soft hairs.  So clearly, unless one can observe the fruits of a geranium this characteristic cannot be ascertained.  No doubt Nasir knew of other differences.

Taking a quick look at the images for G.mascastense available on the internet, most show marked gaps between the petals (as do the images taken in Muscat in the posting above this) compared with images of specimens from the foothills of the NW Himalaya (incl. the one near Chakki) which may constitute sufficient to justify them as separate taxa but without careful study of the whole plants cannot speculate if that is sufficient (or a consistent difference) to justify separation as varieties, subspecies or at the species level but the geographic/altitudinal/climatic differences may be of significance.

Cannot comment further at this stage.

[Mohina Macker]

Dear Chris

Many thanks for this 

If i am back in that area 

I shall try and gather more information

Regards

Mohina

Sent from my iPad

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[J.M. Garg]

Thanks, Chadwell ji

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