Family |
Geraniaceae
Geranium tuberosum
L.
Geranium tuberosum L.
(First published in Sp. Pl.: 680 (1753); Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 2, Pl. CLXXX nº 4; 1970)
• Life-form & habit : Perennial tuberous geophyte; rhizome reduced to a globose or ovoid tuber, usually shallowly buried, producing long-petiolate radical leaves from below ground; stem, including its subterranean part, erect, 10–40 cm tall.
• Leaves : Radical leaves long-petiolate and usually present; stem bearing, at a certain level, two short sessile leaves from which the flowering branches arise. Below this branching point the stem is usually naked, but in some forms it may bear one pair of leaves. Leaf blades palmatifid into lanceolate segments, themselves deeply pinnatifid.
• Inflorescence & flowers : Inflorescence with very reduced floral leaves at the bifurcations; flowers arranged in cymes divided 1–3 times; calyx lobes hispid, rounded or at least obtuse at the apex, membranous along the margin, shortly mucronate; petals obcordate, pale purple-violet, about 1 cm long.
• Fruit : Fruit short, with hispid valves.
• Phenology : Flowers from February to June.
• Habitat & elevation : Cultivated ground, vineyards and woodlands; common in Lebanon and Syria, from the coastal belt to mountain and steppe localities.
• Lebanese distribution : Recorded by Mouterde from Saïda, Beyrouth, Nahr-el-Kelb, Nahr Ibrahim, Tripoli, ‘Asfouriyé, Mosbé, ‘Abey, Chemlan, west of Jounié, the Cedars, Hasroun, Ehden, Col de Zahlé, Mchaitiyé-‘Aïnata, between Ta‘naïl and Zahlé, Beqa‘a, Rayak, Hermon, Tlail in ‘Akkar and Şarada.
• Native range : Albania, Algeria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Kriti, Krym, Lebanon-Syria, Libya, North Caucasus, NW. Balkan Pen., Palestine, Romania, Sicilia, Sinai, South European Russia, Transcaucasus, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Türkiye.
• Diagnostic remarks : Distinguished from Geranium libanoticum by the presence of a radical tuber and long-petiolate radical leaves at anthesis; G. libanoticum lacks the radical tuber and has no radical leaves during flowering, instead bearing a pair of long-petiolate leaves at mid-stem. Mouterde also recognized subsp. linearifolium, with very narrow leaf lobes and one or two leaves below the bifurcation, and subsp. deserti-syriacum, with less divided leaves at the bifurcation and an almost glabrous calyx. POWO currently accepts Geranium tuberosum L. and treats subsp. linearifolium and subsp. deserti-syriacum as synonyms. (powo.science.kew.org)