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Pelargonium Stories (Goniums which you know we)

goniums, which you know we always call geraniums.

The crane's bills and herb Roberts and all their near relations of course are geraniums, and some say the wood sorrels belong to this distinguished family.

Whether these all belong to one family or not, one thing is certain: they are all agreeable to us, and are not so very numerous even when taken all together. The whole of them do not number half so many as do the branches of the Convolvulus Family.

Like the race of white people, they belong principally to temperate climates. to temperate climates.

They do not all belong to our climate, however.

The nasturtiums, for instance, are South Americans and Mexicans. They like to keep warm better than some other members of their family, and their seeds cannot, as a rule, live through our cold winters.

But if we gather the seeds and put them away out of the fierce winter cold and plant them in the spring, then the nasturtiums will grow their best and please us with their bright flowers. We cannot help liking them, they are so jolly with their gay flowers and their round leaves with twisting stalks.

We like them, too, because the flower stem curls up and draws the seeds under the leaves out of the way of the young buds that are waiting to bloom.

I do not know whether wild nasturtiums are as large and bright as the cultivated ones. Very likely not, as people have taken great pains to make them large and bright by selecting the seeds of the largest flowers from year to year and giving them good soil in which to grow.