Pelargonium githagineum E.M.Marais

A deciduous geophyte with a regularly shaped subterranean tuber, 120-300 mm tall when in flower. Tuber: a turnip-shaped or elongated root with a short flattened stem, covered with flaking dark brown periderms, 35-40 mm long and 20-10 mm in diameter. Leaves: a dense mass of radical, rosulate, green, petiolate leaves; lamina simple, elliptic, ovate or triangular, base cuneate to truncate, apex rounded, margin deeply crenate, 20-70 x 10-65 mm, adaxially pilose with patent hairs interspersed with very short glandular hairs, abaxially velutinous; petiole 15-80 mm long and 1.5-4 mm in diameter, prostrate, densely pilose with patent hairs interspersed with glandular hairs; stipules triangular to subulate, adnate to petioles for half their length, 7-15 mm long and 1.5-5 mm wide, ciliate. Inflorescence: scape 5-25 mm long, 3-5 mm in diameter, greenish red, branched, bearing 2-5 pseudo-umbellets with 6-27 flowers each; peduncles 65-260 mm long, 2-5 mm in diameter, greenish red, densely covered with glandular hairs interspersed with patent non-glandular hairs; bracts subulate, reclinate, 3-8 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, hirsute; flower buds, flowers and fruits erect. Pedicel 0.5-2 mm long. Hypanthium 9-20 mm long, 1.5-2.5 times the length of the sepals, greenish red, indumentum as on peduncle. Sepals 5, lanceolate, apices acute, 6-8 mm long, 1.5-3 mm wide, posterior one erect, others patent, greenish red with white margins, indumentum abaxially as on peduncle. Petals 5, white; posterior two ligulate to spathulate, 8-11 x 2-3 mm, with a length/width ratio of 3.5-4.5, bases cuneate, apices truncate to emarginate, recurved during anthesis; anterior three connivent, spathulate, bases attenuate, apices rounded, 6.5-9 x 1.5-2.5 mm. Stamens 10, basally connate, staminal column 1.5-3 mm long, white, smooth; perfect stamens 4, protruding from the flower, 9-12 mm long (longer than the sepals and the petals), free filaments wine-red; staminodes 3-6 mm long; anthers wine-red, ±2 mm long, pollen orange. Gynoecium: ovary superior, oblong-conical, 5-lobed, 3.5-6 mm long, densely sericeous; style filiform, 3-7.5 mm long, white; stigma with 5 recurved branches, 0.6-1.5 mm long, adaxially pink. Fruit: a schizocarp consisting of 5 mericarps, bases of mericarps 5-6 mm long, without glandular hairs, tails 28-35 mm long. It is an early flowering species of section Hoarea and flowers from September to October, before the leaves wither.