Seasonal Wild Flowers

Latin name

Geranium macrorrhizum

Other names

Bigfoot Geranium, Bulgarian Geranium

Family

Geraniaceae

Flowering season

April to June

English distribution

It is grown as a garden plant throughout the country.

The escape is scattered throughout the country but is

less common in the Northeast.

See the BSBI distribution map for Rock Crane's-bill

Habitat

It is a neophyte , which was introduced into the UK

as a garden plant in the 1570s, and has been known

as a naturalised escape since the 1830s.

In the wild it grows on waste ground, in open woodland,

hedge banks and by roads and tracks. As befits a

garden throw-out it is usually found near habitation.

Description

Rock Crane's-bill is a semi-evergreen, perennial, resinous,

spreading, rhizomatous herb, growing up to 50cm.

The flowers are on branching stems of up to 30 cm.

Flowers are up to 2.5cm, with five rounded, pinkish-purple,

pink or white petals and a reddish calyx.

There are 10 stamens sometimes without anthers.

In picture 2 the flower on the left has 10 stamens, all with

anthers, and a style without stigmas.

The flower on the right has 10 stamens, none with anthers,

and a style with 5 stigmas.

The style is red with 5 linear, fleshy stigmas.

The white-flowered cultivar, Album, is the one most often

seen in the wild.

The leaves are aromatic, soft and minutely velvety and up

to 7cm,

deeply divided into 5-7 lobes and on long petioles up to

10 cm.

They may turn reddish in the autumn.

The rhizome is thick and fleshy and creeps when at the

soil surface.

Rock Crane's-bill is used in gardens as aromatic ground

cover.

It is used in traditional herbal medicine because of its

antimicrobial properties. It also contains an essential oil,

used in aromatherapy, together with flavonoids,

 sesquiterpenes, phenolic acids and  vitamins.