Heron’s Bill

The Victorians and Edwardians had a passion for rock or alpine gardens, creating extensive pseudo-alpine landscapes from actual rocks, artificial rocks and various forms of debris, up to and including broken dishes.  Fashionable gardeners filled the cracks and crevices of these layouts with alpine plants newly discovered by plant hunters in various mountainous regions of the world.  Alpine displays were a big part of the first Chelsea Flower Show in 1913 and an alpine layout received the only Gold Medal at the event.

The rock garden passion may have ebbed gradually during the twentieth century, but it never died, even in the banal far reaches of western New York State where I grew up.  For twenty years my father dreamed amorphous dreams of having his own rock garden.  The dream probably originated with the collection of large rocks that came with my childhood home.  We lived in that house for twenty years and the rocks gathered moss in a corner of the back yard for the entire time.  Their nearest neighbor, a rhubarb plant of ever-increasing size, was the only witness to their unrealized potential.  The main impediment to rock garden realization was not an absence of vision, but an abundance of infants. My father was, after all, a busy obstetrician during the second half of the Baby Boom.  He and I never talked about rock gardens after the house was sold.  I think it was the view of the rock pile that kept the dream alive.

That early exposure to underutilized rocks and rhubarb made me wary of both rock gardens and rhubarb husbandry.  I like big romantic rose bushes laden with many-petaled blooms, not tiny little specimen plants that are best viewed with a magnifier.  That is why I was shocked to find myself in love at first sight with a little alpine geranium, Erodium x variabile ‘Album’.

Erodiums are known as heron’s bills, because of their long-nosed seed pods.  They are members of the geranium family, closely related to hardy geraniums, which go by the nickname “cranesbill”.  Cranesbills and heron’s bills have lobed or dissected green leaves and five-petaled flowers.  Depending on the species, the flowers in both genera can be white, shades of pink, purple or blue-purple.  Some have contrasting stripes adorning the petals.  Happy cranesbills reproduce nicely; happy erodium reproduce exponentially.  I know because I bought one variegated erodium about eight years ago.  I now have scores of them—and that is a conservative estimate.

I have no memory of the species or varietal name of the rabbit-like heron’s bill that is expanding its reach, minute by minute, in my front garden.  The new arrival is Erodium x variabile ‘Album’.  Students of horticulture know that an “x” in a plant name always indicates a hybrid, either natural or man-made.  ‘Album’ means white flowered.  In this case, each tiny white flower petal is adorned with a single violet stripe.  The lobed leaves are less than an inch wide.  I caught sight of ‘Album’ in a garden center, while searching for the water feature components that would fulfill my own amorphous dream.  The flowers were so lovely and the plant so perfect that I snatched it up.  I forgot all about pumps, liners and dimensions and moved swiftly to the check-out.  My heart thumped and my head filled with rationalizations.  The plant was dirt cheap and there was only one on the pallet.  Life doesn’t always give you second chances and I was totally smitten with Erodium x variabile.

When I got home I put the plant on my porch, far from the hungry jaws of Mr. Antlers, his consort, Jane Doe, their children and new grandchild.  Back in my home office, I researched the new arrival.  As with so many interesting things, ‘Album’ has a back story.  It seems that it is native to the Mediterranean and has the traits of two local species, alpine geranium—Erodium reichardii—and Corsican geranium—Erodium corsicum.  Botanists doubted that it was a reichardii/corsicum hybrid because the two species could not be hybridized in captivity.  Eventually the Royal Horticultural Society got into the paternity debate and resolved it in the new-fashioned way with DNA testing.  Apparently my variabile hybrid is indeed the offspring of the two erodium in question.  While unwilling to reproduce under the watchful eyes of alpine plant enthusiasts, they are perfectly willing to combine forces in the wild.  I don’t blame them.  There is something to be said for fresh air and an absence of prying eyes.

My variabile erodium will ultimately form a cushion about four inches high and twelve inches wide.  I don’t know if it will reproduce as readily as its already-established relative.  Right now it is growing in a pot, so it will have less chance of doing so.  Still, cranesbills and heron’s bills are notorious for spitting their seeds great distances.  You never know.  For those with worries about plants with those kinds of prolific tendencies, I can attest to the fact that the seedlings are very easy to grub out.  The lovely little flowers are worth it.

Alpine geranium “Album” is sold under the Plants That Work in Nooks and Crannies label.  Plants in that line are available at many local nurseries and garden centers, though not in the big box merchandiser’s.  Look for them in the groundcover or small plant section.