Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Geranium retrorsum

Common name

Common cranesbill, Grassland crane's-bill

Family

Geraniaceae

Where found

Woodland, grassland, and damp and shady sites. Widespread.

Notes

Perennial herb to 0.50 m tall or sprawling. Stems sparsely to densely hairy with short backward pointing appressed hairs, sometimes with minute glandular hairs. Leaves opposite each other, 1–4.5 cm long, 15–50 mm wide, appressed-hairy, oval to almost round or kidney shaped, with 3–7-lobes often divided into 3 narrow secondary lobes, tips of the lobes blunt to pointed. Flowers pink to magenta with yellowish veins, sometimes becoming paler at the base of the petals, with 5 petals each 5–10 mm long. Anthers yellow. Sepals 4.5–7 mm long, hairy with minute glandular and simple hairs, and some longer hairs, mucro 0.5–1 mm long, margin almost translucent. Flowers single or paired. Flowering: most of the year. Seeds black to dark brown, with deep, more or less equal-sided pits (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see).

All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Geranium~retrorsum  (accessed 22 January, 2021)