home

Geranium phaeum - Dusky Crane's-bill

Phylum: Magnoliophyta - Class: Equisetopsida - Order: Geraniales - Family: Geraniaceae

Dusky Cranesbill

For year's I have grown nursery-bought lookalikes of how I imagined Dusky Crane's-bill should be, but the real thing found growing in the wild outshines them all. This is a lovely plant and the flowers are larger and showier than I expected.

Dusky Craanesbill, Geraneum phaeum, closeup of flower and buds

Flowering times

The flowers are a deep, dusky purple or bluish purple and are present from May until the end of July.

Seed capsule of Dusky Cranesbill

The common name of Crane's-bill refers to the sharp, beak-like shape of the seeds which appear once the flowers have died back.

Habitat

Dusky Crane's-bill grows in open meadows, on roadside verges and on damp forest and woodland edges.

Dusky Cranesbill plant, Italy

Distribution

Dusky Crane's-bill is found throughout much of Europe, but in the UK it is mostly found in the vicinity of gardens from which it has escaped and become naturalised.

The specimens shown on this page were photographed in France, Italy and Slovenia.

Sue Parker's latest ebook is a revised and enlarged edition of Wild Orchids in The Burren. Full details here...

Buy it for just £5.95 on Amazon...


Wildflowers in the Algarve, an introductory guide, by Sue Parker

Sue Parker's latest ebook is a revised and enlarged second edition of the acclaimed Wildflowers in the Algarve - an introductory guide. Full details here...

Buy it for just £3.95 on Amazon...

Sue Parker's new ebook is a comprehensive and fully revised edition of her acclaimed field guide to the Wild Orchids of Wales. Full details here...

Buy it for just £5.95 on Amazon...

Sue Parker's 5-star acclaimed field guide to the Wild Orchids of the Algarve is now available as an ebook. Full details here...

Buy it for just £5.95 on Amazon...


Please Help Us: If you have found this information interesting and useful, please consider helping to keep First Nature online by making a small donation towards the web hosting and internet costs.

Any donations over and above the essential running costs will help support the conservation work of Plantlife, the Rivers Trust and charitable botanic gardens - as do author royalties and publisher proceeds from books by Pat and Sue.

© 1995 - 2024 First Nature: a not-for-profit volunteer-run resource

Please help to keep this free resource online...

Terms of use - Privacy policy - Disable cookies - Links policy