Little Robin
Geranium purpureum
Family · Geraniaceae · Harmless
The wild geranium with red stems and a strong smell that grows on shaded walls and wood edges. It turns entirely red at the end of the season, and is one of the plants that most changes colour without wilting.
Walls and rocks · Roadsides and waste ground · Oak woods · Town and roadside
Also known aslesser herb Robert
How to tell it
Reddish, brittle, hairy stems. Palmate leaves divided into five deeply cut segments. Small purplish pink flowers. A strong unpleasant smell when rubbed, which many people recognise without knowing from where.
What it is confused with
Common stork's-bill
Erodium cicutarium
The leaf decides: palmate here, feathery and divided in a row on stork's-bill. And the smell, which only this one has.
What it is for
Traditional external use on wounds and inflammations in European folk medicine, hence the names linked to blood. No food use.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.
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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