GERANIUM LUCIDUM

Family and Genus:- See- GERANIACEAE

Common Names:- Shiny crane's-bill

Homotypic Synonyms:- Robertium lucidum.

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).

Lucidum (L) Bright, clear, shining.

General description:- Annual, shining green, often tinged with red, usually

sparsely hairy.

Stems:-

1) 10-40 cm, erect or ascending.

Leaves:-

1) Lower, long-petiolate; blade suborbicular, 2-4 cm in diam., divided for 2/3-3/4 into

3-5 segments, which are shallowly incised into broadly oblong ultimate lobes,

bright green and glossy, sometimes turning red.

2) Upper, opposite, short-stalked.

Flowers:-

1) Bright pink with a whitish base 10-14 mm, often in pairs.

2) Sepals, 5-7 mm, aristate, erect and connivent during flowering, strongly keeled

and with transverse ridges.

3) Petals, 8-10 mm, with a well-marked claw longer than the obovate, entire, pink

limb.

Fruit:-

1) Mericarps, usually separating without a stylar beak, laterally compressed, with 5

strong, longitudinal ridges at the apex, irregularly reticulate-rugose below,

pubescent on the upper and inner sides.

Key features:-

1) Leaves, not deeply divided.

2) Petals, with a conspicuous claw.

3) Sepals, keeled, erect during flowering.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Rocky and somewhat shaded habitats in open dry shrubby vegetation,

scrubland vegetation and deciduous scrub, generally on limestone. 0-1200(-1700)

Distribution:- Common throughout Greece. - Mediterranean area W & C Europe,

scattered eastwards to C Asia. Fairly widespread in the central west, west and

eastern Crete.

Flowering time:- Mar to early June.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton