Israel wildflowers: Round-leaved geranium
Geranium rotundifolium, Round-leaved geranium, Round-leaved crane’s bill,
Hebrew: גרניון עגול, Arabic: غرنوقي دائري الأوراق
| Scientific name: | Geranium rotundifolium L. | |
| Common name: | Round-leaved geranium, Round-leaved crane’s bill | |
| Hebrew name: | גרניון עגול | |
| Arabic name: | غرنوقي دائري الأوراق | |
| Family: | Geraniaceae, גרניים |
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| Life form: | Annual | |
| Stems: | Up to 30 cm high; herbaceous, roundish stems; soft, white, erect hairs | |
| Leaves: | Alternate, dissected once, dentate or serrate | |
| Inflorescence: | Terminal or axillary clusters of 2 short stalked flowers | |
| Flowers: | 5 pink petals, round edged; sepals not bristle-tipped; staminal filaments whitish, lanceolate; anthers yellowish; stigma reddish | |
| Fruits / pods: | Carpels, 5 filiform mericarps with mostly erect hairs and a more or less glandular beak | |
| Flowering Period: | February, March, April | |
| Habitat: | Batha, Phrygana | |
| Distribution: | Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Shrub-steppes, Montane vegetation of Mt. Hermon | |
| Chorotype: | Euro-Siberian – Med – Irano-Turanian | |
| Summer shedding: | Ephemeral |
 Derivation of the botanical name: Geranium, from Greek γέρανος geranos, a crane; in allusion to the long beak of the carpels.
rotundifolium, rotundus, round, spherical; with round leaves.
Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book XXVI. 108: ‘Geranion is called by some myrrhis and by others myrtidas. It resembles hemlock, but with smaller leaves and shorter in the stem, round, and of a pleasant taste and smell. In this way, it is described by our Roman authorities; but Greeks say that it has leaves a little lighter in colour than those of the mallow, thin stems, and downy, with branches at intervals and two spans long; on them are the leaves, among which on the tips of the stems are miniature small heads of cranes.’  |