Wild geranium (Geranium maculatum)
Description
Geranium maculatum, the wild geranium, spotted geranium, or wood geranium, is a perennial plant native to woodland in eastern North America, from southern Manitoba and southwestern Quebec south to Alabama and Georgia and west to Oklahoma and South Dakota. It is a perennial herbaceous plant growing to 60 cm (2 ft) 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 (4?5 in) broad, with a petiole up to 30 cm (12 in) long arising from the rootstock. They are deeply parted into three or five divisions, each of which is again cleft and toothedThe flowers are 2.5?4 cm (1.0?1.6 in) in diameter, with five rose-purple, pale or violet-purple (rarely white) petals and ten stamens. In the Northern Hemisphere, they appear from April to June (precise dates depend on the latitude). They are grouped in loose corymbs or umbels of two to five at the top of the flower stemsThe 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 (0.8?1.2 in) long (resembling a crane's bill) produced from the center of the old flower.The rhizome is long, and 5 to 10 cm (2 to 4 in) thick, with numerous branches. It is covered with scars, showing the remains of stems of previous years growth. When dry it has a somewhat purplish color internally
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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Class: Magnoliopsida
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Order: Geraniales
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Family: Geraniaceae
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Genus: Geranium
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