British wildflowers - Meadow Crane's Bill

British wildflowers - Meadow Crane's Bill

020 II Meadow Crane's Bill Geranium Pratense L

British wildflowers of the Fields and Medows

The seed-bearing beds have yielded no testimony as yet as to the antiquity (or otherwise) of the Meadow Crane's Bill. It is found in the North Temperate and Arctic Zones, in Arctic Europe, and Siberia. The Meadow Crane's Bill is found in several counties of England and Wales, as well as Scotland, but is absent apparently from N. Cornwall, N. Devon, Isle of Wight, W. Sussex, Carmarthen, Pembroke, Merioneth, Lincoln, Mid Lancashire, Isle of Man, Peebles, Selkirk, Stirling, Elgin, Inverness, Mid and N. Ebudes. The Meadow Crane's Bill is found in the Orkneys. In the N. Highlands it is found only in East Ross. In the Highlands it is found at 1800 ft. In N.E. Ireland it is very rare.

The Meadow Crane's Bill is a plant of the meadows and fields, growing by the sides of streams, and generally in moist situations, usually in lowland districts, but sometimes at high elevations, under moist conditions. With it grow Meadow Sweet, Cowslip, Yellow Rattle, Self-heal, Spotted Orchid, amongst many others.

The habit of the Meadow Crane's Bill is more or less erect and pyramidal, inversely so, the leaves on long stalks, forming a flat platform above, radiating from the rootstock. Thus they present a wide surface to the light and air. The rootstock is blunt. The stems are erect to spreading, branched above, and are glandular hairy above, with the hairs turned downwards. The leaves are all stalked, the radical ones very long-stalked, and are rounded or palmate with seven lobes radiating from a common centre, the lobes cut and coarsely toothed, irregularly lobed, acute. The stipules are awl-shaped to lance-shaped.

The flowers of the Meadow Crane's Bill are large, 1 - 1/4 in. across, bluish-purple, veined. The petals are long, inversely egg-shaped, entire or notched, the claw or stalk fringed with hairs, or bearded. The sepals are long-awned, spreading. The filaments are slender, wedge-shaped below, hairless, or hairy at the base. The flower-stalks are 2-flowered, bent back in fruit. The carpels are smooth, glandular to hairy, the hairs spreading. The seeds are minutely netted.

The Meadow Crane's Bill is often 3 or 4 ft. high. The flowers may be found from June to September. The plant is perennial, increasing by division of the root.

The Meadow Crane's Bill is a well-known wild flower and exhibits admirably numerous adaptations to cross-pollination. Dark lines on the petals converging towards the centre act as honey-guides, and indicate where the honey-glands lie at the base of the outer stamens. The hairs on the claws of the petals protect the honey from the rain. The flowers are large and conspicuous and wide open, and short-lipped insects can gain access to the honey.

The anthers ripen in advance of the stigma, which is a means of preventing self-pollination. When the anthers open, and in this stage hang over the stigma, the latter is incapable of being pollinated, all the stamens ripening, opening, and shrivelling before the stigma is receptive. Hence pollen must be borne by insects from other flowers before the plant can be pollinated at all, and as good seed is usually set this must usually be the case.

As the anthers wither the whorls of stamens bend outwards. When the anthers open the stigmas cannot be pollinated, but only when the anthers are farthest away from them. The visitors are Hymenoptera (Apidae, Apis mellifica, Osmia rufa, Chelostoma stelis, Andrena, Halictus, Prosopis); Diptera (Syrphidae, Melithreptus).

The Meadow Crane's Bill disperses its seeds by its own mechanism. The fruit is many-seeded, splitting into single parts that break off separately. When the seeds are ripe the carpels split, and the seeds are scattered by an explosive movement.

In the case of this species the carpels, which are hairy, not netted, are not thrown. It is the seed which is netted that is thrown by the same means as in G. Robertianum, by the tenseness of the rodlike attachment of the capsule.

Photo. B. Hanley - Meadow Crane's Bill (Geranium pratense, L.)

The Meadow Crane's Bill plant is fond of peat and requires a humus soil, such as that afforded by loamy soil mixed with humus or a little peat - peaty loam.

The fungus Sphaerotheca humuli infests Geranium generally, and Uromyces Geranii grows upon this one.

A beetle, Coeliodes geranii, lives on the Meadow Crane's Bill.

Geranium, Dioscorides, is from the Greek geras, crane, in allusion to the beaked fruits, and pratense alludes to its habitat, in meadows. The Meadow Crane's Bill is called Crowfoot, Crane's-bill, Grace of God, Gratia Dei, the first from the resemblance between its foliage and that of some Buttercups.

The Meadow Crane's Bill has been cultivated in the garden, and is a beautiful, showy, and striking plant.

Essential Specific Characters:

67. Meadow Crane's Bill - Geranium pratense, L. - Stem erect, leaves palmate, 7-lobed, serrate, flowers large, blue, with ciliate claw, smooth stamens, tapered from broad base, capsule hairy, hairs glandular, spreading, seeds netted, fruit-stalks deflexed.

British wildflowers - Meadow Crane's Bill

Browse through our online Volumes of British wildflowers in their natural haunts. This is Volume II of VI Volumes - Meadow Crane's Bill