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Wild Geranium. Wild Cranesbill

Geranium maculatum. Geranium Family.

Stem.--Erect; hairy. Leaves.--About five-parted; the divisions lobed and cut. Flowers.--Pale pink-purple; rather large. Calyx.--Of five sepals. Corolla.--Of five petals. Stamens.--Ten. Pistil.--With five styles, which split apart at maturity so elastically as to discharge the seeds to some distance. In spring and early summer the open woods and shaded roadsides are abundantly brightened with these graceful flowers.

They are of peculiar interest because of their close kinship with the species, G. pratense, which first attracted the attention of the German scholar, Sprengel, to the close relations existing between flowers and insects. The beak-like appearance of its fruit gives the plant both its popular and scientific names, for geranium is from the Greek for crane. The specific title, maculatum, refers to the somewhat blotched appearance of the older leaves.