Gosh, there’s a lot of them! Some of them are so pale they are almost white. Others are a deep, lovely purple. And I can’t seem to resist photographing them!
Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum), also known as Spotted Geranium
is plentiful in most of the woods where I hike. It seems especially fond of wet places, but I see it growing where the ground dries out, too.
Like many woodland flowers, Wild Geranium can reproduce either by seeds or by spreading underground rhizomes. It is not uncommon to see large colonies.
I’m afraid I got a bit zealous photographing these the other day, too, as I did with the Mayapples…
1
2
3
You can vote for your favorite, again, if you like!
Cool fact:
Seeds are produced in a dehiscent fruit and are scattered by explosive dispersal an average of 10 feet (3 m) and a maximum of 30 feet (9 m). (source)
Gotta love explosive dispersal. Plus, I learned a new botanical word: dehiscent. It means the fruit or seedpod automatically opens at maturity to expel the seeds. Hmmm, I wonder if Wild Geranium seed pods will respond to my touch the way Jewelweed (a.k.a. Touch-me-not) does?
a few leaves of geranium in a stew make it savory and safer by its antibacterial properties.
i like all your pictures, each a trip to your places and studies.
Those are sure pretty! I could also get carried away photographing them. That happens to me with the sticky geranium that we have here (and many others).
I think they go off by themselves the way witch hazel does.
I like the second picture the best. What a nice flower. Glad they are so common.
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I vote for photo #1.
We have quite a few of these blooming around our woods right now also, but they’re more of a pinky-lilac color. I really like the darker shade of purple your flowers have.
I like the angle on the 2nd photo. I also take lots of photos of the geraniums we have here (Dove’s-foot & Cut-leaf are most common) – their leaves are quite interesting as well.