Wild geranium, Geranium maculatum (Gerianaceae)
Matthiessen State Park, Oglesby IL. April 2015.
This is a native woodland spring ephemeral, common across the state. Leaves are palmate and deeply lobed, flowers have five light purple petals, and the plants often appear in colonies and clusters. It blooms for about a month in late spring to early summer.
They’re in the same family, but wild geranium looks very little like the geranium you know from Home Depot’s Garden Center and that one 3rd grade science fair project you did on evapotranspiration, which is cultivated genus from southern Africa. Wild geranium blooms for about a month in late spring to early summer. At this point in late May, they seem to be mostly finished flowering around here, but you catch a few stragglers here and there in lightly shaded woodsy areas.