Geranium wislizeni S. Wats.
Family: Geraniaceae
Huachuca Mountain Crane's-Bill,  more...
[Geranium wislizenii S. Watson]
Geranium wislizeni image
Kearney and Peebles 1969, McDougall 1973, Martin and Hutchins 1980

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Herbaceous herbs or small shrubs with forked stems and swollen nodes, stems and petioles sparsely pilose, 20-60 cm long.

Leaves: Palmately lobed, opposite or basal with stipules, the primary divisions cuneate at the base, coarsely toothed with teeth rounded or obtuse, sparingly hirsute on both surfaces.

Flowers: Perfect, petals white or purple-tinged, regular, in cymose or umbel-like clusters, sepals persistent, stamens 10, all fertile, 5 of them longer than the others, style persistent, pilose, stigma branches 14-18 mm long, forming the tip of the beak when mature.

Fruits: Style persistent, with the stylar column 15-18 mm long, puberulent pilose becoming recoiled when fruiting.

Ecology: Found in oak and oak pi-on juniper woodlands from 3,500-6,000 ft (1067-1829 m); flowering August-September.

Notes: A good key for this species are the stigma branches being 14-18 mm long, along with the shorter tips on the sepals and the spreading pubescence on the stems that distinguishes it from G. richardsonii.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher, 2011

Etymology: Geranium comes from from the Greek geranos, "crane," from the beak-like fruit, while wislizeni in named for Frederick Adolf Wislizenus (1810-1889), Army surgeon, explorer, botanist and plant collector of German birth who travelled extensively in the southwestern United States.