Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Geranium neglectum
Common name
Red-stem Cranesbill, Cranesbill
Family
Geraniaceae
Where found
Mountain forest, stream banks, gullies, seepage lines, and in swamps and sphagnum bogs. Ranges, tablelands, ACT, the mountains to the west, and Kosciuszko National Park.
Notes
Perennial herb to about 0.2 m high, with stems to 1.2 m long, prostrate to sprawling, often stoloniferous. Stems often reddish, hairy with appressed hairs or almost hairless. Taproot thick, short. Leaves basal and opposite each other on the stems, 1–7 cm long, 25–85 mm wide, round to kidney-shaped, with 5–7 lobes each further divided into 2–5, tips of the terminal lobes blunt to pointed, both surfaces with scattered appressed hairs, surfaces different colours. Leaves on long stalks. Flowers pink becoming white towards the base of the petals, or white, with fine purple stripes, 20-35 mm in diameter, with 5 petals. Sepals almost hairless to hairy with minute hairs hairy with appressed hairs, margin translucent, 6–9 mm long, 1–2.5 mm wide, mucro 0.5–1 mm long. Anthers yellow. Flowers single. Flowering: chiefly summer to autumn. Seeds dark brown with small 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.
Rare Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Geranium~neglectum (accessed 22 January, 2021)
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