GERANIUM PURPUREUM VILL. AND G. ROBERTIANUM L. : I 161 



Geranium purpureum Vill. (1785), Fl Delph., 72, emend. Jord. (1848) 



G. PURPUREUM Subsp. PURPUREUM 



G. scopulicolum Jord., nom. nud. 



G. lebelii Boreau (1840), Fl Cent. Fr.,1, 324. 



G. modestum Jord. (1848), Adnot. Cat. plant. Jard. Grenoh., 3; (1860), Bull. Soc. Bot. 

 Fr., 7, 605. 



G. minutiflorum Jord., Cat. Dijon; ex ej. (1848), Pug. PL Not'., 39. 

 G. rohertianum L. var. modestum Syme, 1863, Eng. Bot., ed. 3, 2, 204, t. 306. 

 G. intricatum Gren. in litt. et in herb. Mus. Paris; ex Rouy (1897), Fl. Fr., 4, 98. 

 G. purpureum Vill. var. genuinum Rouy (1897), F/. France, 4, 97. 



Type locality : Pont de Claix, near Grenoble, France. 



Within the species Geranium purpureum as defined by Villars, there were two distinct 

 plants, one from Le Buis (Drome) the other from the Pont de Claix, near Grenoble. 

 Jordan (1848) recognised this and redefined G.. purpureum on the basis of the Pont de 

 Claix form, separating the material from Le Buis as G. villarsianum. The former contains 

 plants whose fruits carry a pattern of ridges on their backs while the latter group of forms 

 is characterised by thick weals on the fruits. In the Paris herbarium there are several 

 sheets from Pont de Claix. Jordan, however, came to believe that any units which were 

 distinct, constant and true-breeding represented true species and, as a result of the 

 cultivation experiments which he carried on with plants of various genera, he described 

 a great number. Because G. purpureum is normally self-pollinated, it tends towards 

 homozygosity and, while populations in any locality may be relatively uniform as a result, 

 there are often well-m.arked distinctions between populations (Baker, 1953). Consequently, 

 Jordan, after cultivating sam_ples of some of these populations, was able to describe at 

 least two new " species " within this group. Other French workers were willing to find 

 specific diversity here. Wilmott (1921) has already pointed out that G. purpureum, 

 G. scopulicolum, G. modestum and G. lebelii cannot be separated by any character which 

 we should now consider to be of specific significance. Indeed after the examination 

 of authentic material from French sources, both in British Herbaria and at Paris, they 

 do not seem to differ even in subspecific degree from Villars' type. G. minutiflorum 

 appears to represent an exposed form of this subspecies. G. intricatum, which is charac- 

 terised by the extreme reduction in size of the leaves in the region of the inflorescence, 

 also appears to represent only a minor variant. None of them have significantly different 

 ecological preferences and they occur here and there within the general area of the species. 



Thus, within the limits of the species, the type subspecies may be said to comprise 

 plants which have an upright or strongly ascending habit and grow in rocky places, on 

 cliffs and on dry hills. In the southern parts of its distribution these plants may occur 

 in shady places, even in woodland, but in the British Isles they are rather intolerant 

 of shade. Except in some populations where hybridisation with G. robertianum appears 

 to have played a part, their fruits carry a characteristic pattern of closely-set ridges (Fig. 1). 

 These fruits may be glabrous or hairy. 



This subspecies ranges through south-western and western Europe and reaches the 

 islands of Madeira. Its complete European distribution is not yet fully worked out but 

 it is replaced in many Mediterranean areas by the group of forms included in G. villar- 

 sianum Jord. and in the eastern Mediterranean and the highlands of East Africa by a 

 third species which has also been confused with G. purpureum. 



As indicated by Evans (1920) and Vv^ilmott (1921), plants agreeing in all essentials 

 with Villars' type are found in all the south-western stations for the species in the British 

 Isles. Here they grow particularly in rocky and stony places (but are also found in open 



