Geranium Maculatum or Wild Geranium is a perennial plant (living for more than two years), native to North America, mainly to the east parts of USA and Canada. Old Maid’s Nightcap, as it is often referred to as, belongs to Kingdom Plantae, Division Magnoliophyta, Class Magnoliopsida, Order Geraniales, Family Geraniaceae, Genus Geranium.
It is 40-60 cm (1-2 feet) tall, with five-petaled flowers on the top of the branchless stem, gathered in clusters of up to five. The flowers are coloured in white, pink or purple with a size of approximately 2.5 – 4cm (1 – 1.5″) in diameter. The shadier the place, the darker the petals’s colour. Each flower consist of 5 rounded pink/purple/white petals, 5 green petals, 10 stamens, erect or curved, with yellow anthers on top and a pistil with 5 carpels.
The rootstock is dark and stout and the rhizome that it produces is long, branched and 5-10cm (3-5”) thick. The stem is round, bristly, with small reversed white hairs all over. The leaves are approximately 10cm (5”) wide, palmately-lobed and toothed, with 5-7 deep lobes. The ones near the root are on long petioles, reaching up to 30 cm (1 foot) and covered with coarse white hairs. Those at the top are a bit smaller in size and with only 3 deeply cut lobes. They often appear to be sessile.
The Wild Geranium blooms in spring and summer – March, April, May, June and early July. The pistil continues into a beak-like fruit 2-3cm (1 -1 ½ “) long and as it matures, the carpels curl up in order to spread the seed from the mother-plant. The fruit is usually ripe 3-4 weeks after the blooming has started.
It prefers light shade to partial sunlight and moist to slightly dry and humus-rich soil and often occurs in rocky open woods. In general however, the Wild Geranium can adapt to various conditions and requires very little care when grown as a garden plant. It can be propagated either by a rhizome division or by seeds, sown in late autumn or early spring.
The plant becomes dormant in drought conditions and at the end of the summer.
The Alum Root, as Geranium Maculatum is also called, is a powerful astringents and is often used in herbal medicine. This applies mainly to its root, rich in tannins. When dry, it is easy to crush into powder and is used, along with the leaves, as a remedy for for diarrhea, inflamed gums, thrush, sore throat etc.
