GERANIUM PURPUREUM

Family and Genus:- See- GERANIACEAE

Common Names:- Little robin

Homotypic Synonyms:- Geranium robertianum var. purpureum, Geranium

robertianum subsp. purpureum, Geranium robertianum proles purpureum,

Robertium purpureum, Robertium vulgare var. purpureum.

Meaning:- Geranium (Gr) Crane. A name used by the Greek physician and

botanist Dioscorides referring to to the shape of the fruit resembling the head of a

crane.

Purpureum (L) Reddish-purple.

General description:- Annual or biennial, often turning red, more or less hairy.

Stems:-

1) 10-50 cm, procumbent to ascending.

Leaves:-

1) 3-8 cm wide, very deeply divided, so as to appear compound, with 3(-5) principal

divisions, which are 2-pinnatisect with oblong, mucronate or apiculate segments.

Flowers:-

1) Pedicels, with long, patent glandular and deflexed eglandular hairs.

2) Sepals, 7-9 mm, erect, mucronate or shortly aristate.

3) Petals, 5-9 mm, purplish-pink, with limb 3-5 mm, elliptic-oblong, longer than

broad, and contracted into a relatively broad claw.

4) Pollen, orange.

Fruit:-

1) Mericarps usually glabrous, with about 4 strong, transverse ridges near the apex,

and covered elsewhere by a close reticulum of lower but conspicuous ridges.

Key features:-

1) Petals, 5-9 mm.

2) Pollen, orange.

2) Mericarps, with numerous ridges.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Open dry shrubby vegetation, open woodland and scrub, olive groves, dry

stream-beds, gravelly roadsides. 0-1000(-1600) m.

Distribution:- Widespread and common throughout the Mediterranean. Widespread

and common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Mar-May, some-times later.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton