Avens and Allies
What are they?
This is something of a hotch potch group of small, native, herbaceous perennials that are in the rose family. The Wood and Water Avens are closely related - though very different in their flowers - and regularly hybridise where they occur together in damp woods. Although these plants are rather different overall, they all share some common traits of the rose family, such as five-petalled flowers with many carpels clustered at the centre and with numerous stamens, together with stipules at the base of the leaves.
Where are they found?
Water Avens and Marsh Cinquefoil are plants of wet areas, while Wood Avens is a common plant of both woodland and, increasingly, of gardens and urban areas.
Identification
The species on this page are all readily told apart by differences in their flowers and their leaves.
Wood Avens Geum urbanum
(Herb Bennet) Native in a wide range of wooded and shady habitats. Increasingly becoming a 'weed' of gardens and urban environments. Flowers June to August. Plants are wintergreen with the distinctive basal leaf rosettes easily found during the winter months.
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Water Avens Geum rivale
Native in wet woods, fens and meadows and often considered an indicator species of good quality habitat. Flowers May to September. Distinctive, nodding flowers with five, peach-coloured petals. Leaves similar to those of Wood Avens but more sharply angular and coarsely toothed.
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Hybrid Avens Geum x intermedium
Native in wet woods and meadows where the parents grow together. Flowers May to September. A fertile hybrid between Wood and Water Avens which produces a wide range of intermediate forms. Oddly, hybrids also may have an increased number of petals, producing a double-flowered form. Flowers are typically pale yellow with pinkish veins or highlights, but some plants may be pinker, perhaps reflecting backcrosses with Water Avens.
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Marsh Cinquefoil Comarum palustre
Native in good quality wetlands on peaty soils. Declining due to falling water tables and agricultural run-off and now rare except in some parts of the Norfolk Broads. Flowers May to July. A very distinctive plant that forms creeping stems and leaves with five or seven leaflets. Flowers are an oddly dull shade of purplish-red and are unusually structured, with the sepals being much larger than the petals. Some flowers have extra sepals and petals with 7-8 of each commonly occurring.
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