Fun with plant identification, February 2013

I found this photo in our files that Chris Cutler had taken awhile back.  After some research we decided it was a type of geranium, but what exactly? There are many websites to help you identify plants, if you can set some parameters: petal color, leaf shape, height etc. This plant clearly has toothed leaves, pink flowers and hairy stems.  I do remember at the time the name 'cranesbill' was mentioned. So searching for : cranesbill, geranium, pink etc. led me to a very informative UC Davis article on the Geranium maderense
This plant is endemic to the island of Madeira.  The name 'cranesbill' refers to the shape of the seed pods on geraniums which resemble a long crane’s bill. The article is very useful in sorting out the difference between Geranium pelargonium and the 'hardy' geraniums like G. maderense.  It is a really unusual plant and thank you to Chris for getting a high resolution on both the leaves and flowers (makes plant ID so much easier to see all parts of the plant clearly).

 To see more suggestions for drought resistant landscape plants, visit stevensmithlandscape.com