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G E R A N I U M pyrenaicum.
Mountain Cranejbill.
M O N A D E L P H I A Decandria.
G en. C har. Style one. Petals 3, regular. Neflary
5 glands at the bafe of the longer flam in a. Fruit
beaked, feparating into 5 fecd-cafes, each tipped
with a long fimple naked awn.
Spec. Char. Stalks two-flowered. Petals cloven,
twice as long as the calyx. Leaves kidney-fhaped,
palmate, cut. Seed-cafes even, fharply carinated,
flightly downy. Seeds fmooth.
Syn . Geranium pyrenaicum. Linn. Mant. 97, & 257.
Hudf. FI. An. 302. With. Pot. Arr. 729. ed. 3.
601. Sibth. Ox. 212. Curt. Lond. fa jc. 3. t. 42.
Lightf. Scot. 367.
T h e Englifh name of this fpecies feems to have been given
from too great a regard to its Latin one, which however is very
faulty, the plant being by no means peculiar to the Pyrenean
mountains or any others, but found in wafte ground and the
borders of fields in various parts of Europe, common about London,
as at Chelfea, Hammerfmith, &c. flowering in July. Linnaeus
defcribed it from Gerard, fuppofing he had never feen it,
and little fufpedt ing that he had it in his herbarium confounded
with molle. From that fpecies it differs eflentially in the feed-
cafes being even, not tranfverfely wrinkled, though their keel
has a projecting tooth or two on each fide. It moft agrees with
pufillum (fee our A-385) in its feed-cafes, which when young are
downy, as in that, but much lefs fo when they corpe to maturity.
We have not found them at all hairy as mentioned in Dr,
Withering’s 3d edition. The petals twice as long as the calyx,
and deeply cloven, diftinguifh it however from pufillum, not to
mention the greater fize of all its parts, and the perennial root,
in which refpedts it differs from both the above-mentioned and
from other neighbouring kinds. The 5 exterior ftamina are
fometimes abortive. It varies with white flowers. The Items
are ereCt, riling to the height of 2 or 3 feet, with fpreading
branches.
Mr. Curtis, in his excellent Flora, fafc. 2, t. 50, has noticed
the wrinkled feed-coat of G. molle; but it is remarkable he
fhould not mention that mark of diftinCtion when he came to
defcribe the pyrenaicum, and was fo much puzzled to find a
permanent character between them. In fa£t his “ large-flow«
ered molls about Chelfea-hofpital” is the pyrenaicum.