Madeira cranesbill
Geranium palmatum
Family · Geraniaceae · Harmless
The cranesbill that makes a rosette the size of a parasol and raises a posy of magenta-pink flowers above it. It covers levada banks and laurisilva edges in Madeira.
Oak woods · Walls and rocks · Uplands · Streams and ditches
Also known asMadeiran geranium
How to tell it
A basal rosette of enormous leaves, twenty to forty centimetres, divided into five to seven lobes like an open hand, on long reddish stalks. A red hairy flowering stem. Magenta-pink flowers three to four centimetres, with a darker centre, in a posy. Range: endemic to Madeira.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
No use. It is another case of island gigantism in the same genus as the small garden cranesbills of the mainland, and is widely grown in gardens outside Madeira.