Cut-leaved cranesbill
Geranium dissectum
Family · Geraniaceae · Harmless
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The cranesbill with leaves so deeply cut they look divided into fine strips, with small dark purple-pink flowers. It is among the commonest in fields and verges across the Peninsula.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Town and roadside · Scrubland
Also known ascutleaf geranium
How to tell it
Leaves divided into five to seven segments which divide again into narrow strips, nearly to the base. Small flowers, seven to ten millimetres, dark purple-pink, in pairs on a short stalk. The fruit is the family's typical stork's bill, coiling into a spiral as it dries and flinging the seed.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
No use
It is worth it as the Peninsula's most finely cut cranesbill, and so the best for practising the difference between cranesbill and storksbill: cranesbill leaves are divided in a circle from one point, storksbill leaves in pairs along an axis.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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