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Portrait of Meadow cranesbill

Nature · Wildflowers & flowers

Meadow cranesbill

Native · flowers Jun–Aug · lowland hay meadows, verges and chalky grassland

Geranium pratense — Geraniaceae

A stately perennial of hay meadows and road verges, whose big, saucer-shaped, bluish-violet flowers are a favourite with bumblebees. The seed pods form a long, pointed 'bill', giving the plant its name. It is most at home on chalky soils and colours verges in places such as the Cotswolds.

How to spot them

  • ▸Large, saucer-shaped, blue-violet flowers about 3–4.5 cm across, five rounded petals with paler veins
  • ▸Deeply divided, palmate leaves cut almost to the base into 5–7 lobes, on a hairy stem up to about 75 cm
  • ▸Seed pods with a long, pointed beak like a crane's bill, which flings the seeds when it dries
  • ▸Hay meadows, road verges and chalky grassland; rarer in south-west England and East Anglia
  • ▸Wood cranesbill, Geranium sylvaticum, is a smaller, more reddish-violet flower with a white centre, of upland northern meadows and woods

How to know it

Big blue-violet saucer flowers over deeply divided leaves, beloved of bumblebees, on chalk verges; the seed pods look like a bird's beak

Meadow cranesbill, Geranium pratense.

Its seed pods, long and pointed, resemble the bill of a wading bird, and give this flower and its whole genus their common name

Cranesbill, from geranos, Greek for a crane.

Roadsides in the Cotswolds are coloured by this bluish-violet flower in early summer

Meadow cranesbill (Wildlife Trusts).

Buff-tailed and red-tailed bumblebees and honeybees favour its nectar-rich flowers, which appear from June to August

Meadow cranesbill.

A herbaceous member of the same family as garden 'geraniums' (Pelargonium), though it is a true Geranium of lowland hay fields

Meadow cranesbill — Geraniaceae.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Family Geraniaceae; Geranium comes from Greek geranos, a crane, because of the beaked fruit
  • •The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust gives a flowering season of June to August and a height up to 75 cm
  • •The nectar-rich flowers are a favourite of many bees, including buff-tailed and red-tailed bumblebees and honeybees
  • •Found throughout the UK but rarer in South West England and East Anglia; characteristic of lowland hay meadows
  • •The seed pod splits explosively when ripe, slinging the seeds away from the parent plant
  • •RHS: clump-forming perennial 60–90 cm tall, hairy stems, deeply lobed foliage, saucer-shaped white, blue or violet flowers 4.5 cm across
  • •Popular garden plant; the garden 'geraniums' sold in pots are actually Pelargonium
  • •A lowland hay-meadow species; an estimated 97% of lowland unimproved grassland in England and Wales was lost between 1930 and 1984 (Fuller 1987, cited by the JNCC)

Drill it — 6 cards

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Sources