Geraniums hold no mystery
Or so I always thought.
But I gazed in wide-eyed wonder
At this one peculiar pot.
Two different types of blossoms
One single stem — unbroken
One-half Patricia Andrea
Blooms never fully open.
The other just a regular
Now here’s the fascination
No bees or breezes in the room
To induce cross-pollination.
Surely someone out there
Understands why this is so
I yearn to find the answer
Would Albert Parsons know?
Here’s an explanation for Eva:
The “Patricia Andrea” geranium mentioned in the poem is the one commonly called the tulip geranium. Such a plant is called a chimera, which is a plant that has cells of more than one genotype (genetic makeup) growing in adjacent tissues of the plant. This often occurs in hybrid plants. I have had a single geranium plant produce two distinctly different coloured blooms. Plants with variegated leaves often display this characteristic as well — some non-variegated leaves will appear, or sometimes leaves totally lacking any green at all.
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