‘What grows or lives there in Nieuwegein’

Do you ever wonder what kind of wild plant or weed that is, in the garden or on the roadside or somewhere among the grass in the park in Nieuwegein? Or what kind of mushroom is that? Or what crawls or flies there, sometimes even in the house?

The Nieuwegein nature lover Udo Tenge describes a plant, fungus or animal every week that you may encounter somewhere. He also has one own website. ‘I’ll stick to wild plants for a while. This time some stork’s beaks (geraniums)’ said Udo.

Udo: ‘If you have a windowsill full of bright red geraniums, you probably know that they are not actually geraniums but pelargoniums, of tropical origin. If you really think they are just geraniums, you can smell them: the entire plant has an unpleasant odor, they stink. Geraniums don’t smell.’

‘The Dutch name for geranium is stork’s bill. Each flower has a beak-shaped seed pod in the center in the shape of a (micro) stork’s beak and has little or no discernible scent.’

‘Storks’ beaks can be found throughout Europe. About 10 to 14 “wild” species occur in Nieuwegein, with at least as many feral foreign species. Foreign varieties are generally “large-flowered” compared to the Dutch ones.’

‘A special feature of the Dutch species is that they have many beautiful but small flowers and can vary considerably in leaf shape.’

‘The color of the flowers varies from blue to pink: the largest are those of the stork’s bill and the smallest flowers are the small stork’s bill.’