Plant Name
Scientific Name: Geranium richardsonii
Common Names: Richardson's Geranium, Richardson Geranium
Plant Characteristics
Duration: Perennial
Growth Habit: Herb/Forb
Arizona Native Status: Native
Habitat: Mountain. This wildflower grows in moist, partly shady locations in mountain meadows and forests.
Flower Color: Pale violet-pink, Pale lavender, White
Flowering Season: Late spring, Summer, Early fall
Height: Up to 32 inches (80 cm) tall
Description: The 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide flowers have 5 broad, rounded petals, 10 stamens with violet to brownish anthers, an elongated style, and 5 green, awn-tipped sepals. The petals have purple to magenta veins and fuzzy, greenish white hair near their base. The flowers are followed by beaked seed capsules that resemble a crane bill or stork bill. The leaves are green, hairy, and deeply palmately lobed into 3, 5, or 7 point-tipped main lobes. The stems are green to reddish in color, ascending to erect, branched, and glandular-hairy on the upper parts of the plant.
The similar Pineywoods Geranium (Geranium caespitosum) has darker pink or purple flowers.
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Rosidae
Order: Geraniales
Family: Geraniaceae – Geranium family
Genus: Geranium L. – geranium
Species: Geranium richardsonii Fisch. & Trautv. – Richardson's geranium
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