Herb Robert

About

Herb Robert is an annual or biennial plant 20–50 cm tall. The stems are branched, fragile, hairy, and often reddish. The leaves are divided into three to five lobes, each of which is further finely dissected, giving the foliage a lace-like appearance. When crushed, the plant has a sharp unpleasant smell, which is how it got its name.

The flowers are small, 1–1.5 cm in diameter, pink, with five rounded petals that have three lighter stripes visible on them. They grow in pairs on a common stalk. Herb Robert blooms for a long time, from May to October. The fruit has a long 'beak', like all geraniums; when ripe, it splits open and ejects seeds several meters away.

In the Carpathians, Herb Robert grows in shady beech and mixed forests, in ravines, on mossy rocks, stone screes, old walls, and along forest roads—from the foothills to the upper forest limit. It readily settles in places with few competitors: in crevices, on stumps, among stones.

In open sunny places and in autumn, the entire plant turns bright red—this is how it protects itself from excess light.

Several other geraniums grow in the forests and meadows of the Carpathians. The forest geranium and the dark geranium are significantly larger, with purple or dark purple flowers and less dissected leaves.

Where in the Carpathians

Teal — roughly where the species can occur, by elevation and habitat; orange — where naturalists recorded it (GBIF, CC0/CC BY).

Range: elevation belt and the countries where it is known — our model (AWS Terrain Tiles)

Countries

Ukraine · Slovakia · Czechia · Poland · Romania · Hungary · Austria · Serbia

Mountain ranges

nearly all Carpathian ranges, within its elevation belt

Altitude belts

Foothills (below 600 m) · Beech forests (600–1200 m)

When to see it

From naturalists’ observations in the Carpathians (iNaturalist, research grade): the darker the cell, the more often the species is seen that month.

Protection and rules

Not listed in the Red Data Book of Ukraine.

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