Nomenclature

Species name:

Geranium rotondifolium   L.

Author(s):

Carl von Linné
   Sweden, 1707-1778

Common name:

Round-Leaved Crane's bill
Roundleaf Geranium

Maltese name:

Ġeranju tal-werqa tonda

Plant Family:

Geraniaceae   (Geranium Family)

Name Derivation:

Geranium = from the Greek geranos - "crane", referring to the slender beak-like fruit (Greek);
rotundifolium = 'rotundi'=round, 'folium'=leaf; hence round-leaved (Latin).

Synonyms:

Geranium acrocarphum, G. core, G. malvaceum, G. pinnatifidum, G. propinquum, G. strictum, G. viscidulum

Plant Description

Life Cycle:

Annual

Habitat:

Rocky slopes or valley sides; also reported in fields. Prefers shaded and damp habitats.

Sources in Malta:

Uncommon. Specimen found at Wied Hoxt, Wied Anglu and Chadwick lakes

Plant Height:

15-35cm

Flowering Time:

Feb-Apr

An herbaceous annual plant that displays numerous long-petiolated leaves arranged in a basal rosette of 2 to 5 circular rows. The reddish-maroon petioles (leaf stalks) possess a mixture of glandular and eglandular hairs, both short and white-gray in colour. They often assume an ascending position, sometimes erect at the centre. The true main stem remains very low.

The leaves have a general circular shape, a bit flattened towards the petiole. The lamina is divided into 5 or 7 lobes cut only from 10% to 40% of its radius. This contrast with the leaves of Geranium. molle which have a similar rounded shape but are cut more deeply, around 70% of the leaf radius. The outline is crenated or round-dentate; it appears to be a repeated pattern of 1 broad teeth between 2 slightly longer and thinner rounded teeth. The leaf edge posses fine, white hair, which may need a magnifying glass to be observed. Leaves of some specimen have an interesting small red blob at the point where the outline is cut. Venation is conspicuously pinnate.

The flowers often appear in pairs, more or less around the beginning of February. They have peduncles shorter from the leaf stalk, and so they are found at the centre of the leaf rosette. Each flower consists of a 5-sepalled calyx (5mm long), with long fine hairs and bristle-like pointed tip (aristate); and a 5-petalled, glabrous corolla (14mm across). Sepals and petals both unfused. The petals of this species of Geranium have a pinkish-rose colour, compared to the magenta-violet of the other Geranium species in Malta. However the most distinctive feature is the fact that the petals do not have a notched (bilobed) tip, hence an entire outline (or occasionally shallowly notched).

The female reproductive part consists of a superior ovary with 5 fused carpels, a single style and 5-parted, filiform stigma having a mauve colour. The male reproductive part consists of 2 sets (whorls) of 5 stamens each, one below the other. Stamen have thin filaments and lilac anthers, alternating between the stigma parts.

The fruit is a slender, 2cm long column referred to as a beak, which was the style in the flowering phase. At the base of the beak there are the 5 separated mericarps - rounded and black structures without ridges and each holding one seed. These are connected to the uppermost part of the beak by a strap-like appendage (called rostrum) making the outer wall of the beak itself. When mature, this rostrum shrinks and pulls up the mericarps from their base with a sudden, inward-rolling (coiling) movement. While doing so, part of the mericarp wall remains attached at the base (receptacle) and so the seed is now partially exposed in the broken mericarp. During the sudden twirling movement of the mericarp, the loosely seated seed is ejected out to long distances. What is left is a coiled rostrum with an empty, half broken mericarp. An elaborated mechanical dispersion of many Geraniaceae species.

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