Pelargonium capitatum [Kusmalva]

[nfoto]

Rørslett, B. 2022. Pelargonium capitatum (L.) L'Hér. Geraniaceae. Kusmalva. South-African flowers photographed in ultraviolet (UV) and visible light. LINK

 

Common Names:

• Kusmalva (Afrikaans) = Coast Mallow
• Rose-scented Pelargonium

 

This is a low-growing perennial shrub, from 0.2 to 21m tall. It thrives on dry soils, mainly near the coast, but can ascend to an altitude of 1300m.a.s.l.  The South-African distribution (map from http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/africa/details.php?langue=an&id=10331) is coastal. There are occurrences in the northern part of the continent as well, where the species obviously has been introduced.

 

 

I photographed this species at Cape Peninsula, Western Cape Province. As the weather was inclement with lots of rain, shooting conditions were not optimal.

 

Visible light appearance,

 

 

The rendition in ultraviolet (UV) show the dark foliage, densely hair-covered stems, and a zygomorphic flower with central dark patches, in particular on the upper petals,

 

All photographs on this page are copyright Birna Rørslett and may not be used without explicit permission of the author.

 

[Published 19 February, 2022, last update 20 February, 2022 ]

 

[Andrea B.]

Really lovely capture with the raindrops.

 

(Birna, you forgot the family name.)

[nfoto]

Fixed now. Thanks.

 

By the way, rain can be beatiful  in its own as well as required for growth in nature, but makes doing UV captures in the field rather unpleasant.

[Andy Perrin]

Heh, true about the discomfort, but also about the beauty.

[LookCloser]

Very interesting Birna .  I see the same pattern as in the image I shot of this species but yours is much more subtle.
I wonder if this is a product of my processing, light source or flower age, or if it is a genuine difference between populations.  

I will have to shoot a selection of blooms when they start to flower locally again.

[Andrea B.]

LookCloser - yes, there can be variation in the UV floral signature based location, altitude, flower age and other factors such as climate. Birna and I have seen various examples of this. These differences are mentioned in the literature. As an example, last summer I photographed a common wild sunflower, Helianthus annuus, which had a UV-dark bulls-eye almost completely covering the flower rays. That was a bit unusual because typically the UV-dark bulls-eye in H. annuus is much smaller. 

 

Here is a reference for a paper about climate and UV pattern size.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.00847/full