Geranium

Geranium is a genus of 422 species of flowering annual, biennial, and perennial plants that are commonly known as the cranesbills. It is found throughout the temperate regions of the world and the mountains of the tropics, but mostly in the eastern part of the Mediterranean region. These attractive flowers will grow in any soil as long as it is not waterlogged. Propagation is by semi-ripe cuttings in summer, by seed or by division in autumn or spring.

The name "cranesbill" derives from the appearance of the seed-heads, which have the same shape as the bill of a crane. The genus name is derived from the Greek word geranos, meaning "crane". The long, palmately cleft leaves are broadly circular in form. Their rose, pink to blue or white flowers have 5 petals.

Confusingly, "geranium" is also the common name of members of the genus Pelargonium, which were formerly classified in the cranesbill genus. In the United States, true Geraniums are frequently distinguished from the less hardy Pelargoniums as (rather redundantly) "hardy geraniums" by gardeners and in the horticultural trade. One can make the distinction between the two by looking at the flowers : Geranium has symmetrical flowers, while Pelargonium has irregular or maculate petals. Other former members of the genus are now classified in genus Erodium, including the plants known as filarees in North America.


Species
Geranium maculatum, the Spotted Geranium, Wood Geranium, or Wild Geranium is a woodland perennial plant native to eastern North America, from southern Manitoba and southwestern Quebec south to Alabama and west to Oklahoma and South Dakota. It grows in dry to moist woods and is normally abundant when found.
It is a perennial herbaceous plant growing to 60 cm tall, producing upright usually unbranched stems and flowers in spring to early summer. The leaves are palmately lobed with five or seven deeply cut lobes, 10–12.5 cm broad, with a petiole up to 30 cm long arising from the rootstock. They are deeply parted into three or five divisions, each of which is again cleft and toothed. The flowers are 2.5–4 cm diameter, with five rose-purple, pale or violet-purple (rarely white) petals and ten stamens; they appear from April to June in loose clusters of two to five at the top of the stems. The fruit capsule, which springs open when ripe, consists of five cells each containing one seed joined to a long beak-like column 2-3 cm long (resembling a crane's bill) produced from the center of the old flower. The rhizome is long, and 5 to 10 cm thick, with numerous branches. The rhizomes are covered with scars, showing the remains of stems of previous years growth. When dry it has a somewhat purplish color internally. Plants go dormant in early summer after seed is ripe and dispersed.
The plant has been used in herbal medicine, and is also grown as a garden plant.

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