SPECIES DESCRIPTION
GERANIUM DISSECTUM
Family and Genus:- See- GERANIACEAE
Common Names:- Cut-leaved cranesbill
Homotypic Synonyms:- Geranium dissectum var. typicum.
Meaning:- Geranium (Gr) Crane. A name used by the Greek physician and
botanist Dioscorides. (refers to the shape of the fruit resembling the head of a
crane).
Dissectum (L) Cut into many deep segments.
General description:- Short to medium, spreading or rather sprawling, hairy
annual, with ascending flowering stems.
Leaves:-
1) 2-5 cm wide, divided almost to the base into 5-7 contiguous, rhombic, deeply
pinnatifid lobes; segments linear-oblong.
2) Uppermost, opposite and less lobed, distinctly petiolate.
Flowers:-
1) Peduncles, shorter than the subtending leaves.
2) Pedicels and sepals, densely pubescent, with some of the hairs glandular.
3) Sepals, 5-6 mm, with appressed eglandular hairs, mainly on the veins; arista not
more than 2 mm.
4) Petals, 5 mm, purplish-pink.
Fruit:-
1) Mericarps, hairy, without ridges.
Key features:-
1) Most of the sepals with long arista.
2) All 10 stamens with anthers.
3) Leaves, divided for c. 95 % of the radius, with ± linear segments.
4) Peduncles, shorter than subtending leaf.
Habitat:- Damp meadows, olive groves, seasonally wet spots in scrubland
vegetation and by field margins. 0-1000 m.
Distribution:- Throughout Greece, common in most areas. - Most of Europe,
eastwards to Caucasus and Iran. Widespread and common on Crete.
Flowering time:- Early Mar to June.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton
