WILD GERANIUM (CrancsbilO 

 Geranium maculatum L. 



April - May Kin to thnt wild rod goraninm of the Africnn veld, sent 

 Sunny woods lo liullaiid to become the ancestor of all cultivated gera- 

 niums, the pale pink wild geranium of the Illinois 

 woods comes into bloom when April is almost over and ^lay is on the land. 



The wild geranium is unlike many spring ilowers in that it produces 

 a good sized plant bei'ore it blooms. Since it comes later than those earliest 

 flowers which send np their loaves and flower buds ready for immediate 

 action, the wdld geranium takes its time. The leaves come up as early 

 as tht> earliest dutehman's brecchos and spring beauties — small. Ix'auti- 

 fully fonncd, rose-colorod leaves bent down over a small curving stem. 

 Slowly they expand until the leaves stand on foot-long stalks around the 

 base of the plant. In the midst rise the flowering stiilks. There usually 

 is a single whorl of loaves — porhajis three to six deeply toothed and 

 divided leaves, veiny, hairy, dark greon. From the stem whore the leaves 

 spring outward, the flowering stalks bear a loose cluster of large, single 

 flowers. Their resemblance to a single cultivated geranium flower is 

 marked ; the color is lavondor-pink, of varying degrees of intensity de- 

 pend! ug upon the amount of sun they receive. 



The wild geranium has a remarkable anungement to prevent self 

 pollination. It ha,s lost the power of self-fertilization, but instead ripens 

 first the outer, then the inner row of anthoi-s. As soon as the pollen has 

 been removed from the anthers they are immediately shed to prevent 

 any chance of self-pollination. Xot until the stamens are sterile will the 

 stigmas of the five-parted pistil become fertile to receive pollen from 

 other geranium flowers. 



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