GardenBanter.co.uk - Flower IDs

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mitulove (Post 894467)

Does anybody have a moment to look at these flowers and help me identify them?

I think this red flower is so pretty, though the heart-shaped leaves are almost too much ;)

Something in the rose family (which covers and awful lot, from strawberries to apples) - Potentilla from the leaves, though the petals are a bit narrow rather than being wide enough to bump up against each other. Googling shows me one or two potentillas with this petal shape, though with yellow rather than red flowers.

Quote:

Is the red flower lychnis? What is the blue flower in the back? If it helps, it's got what looks like deeply cut maple leaves, so far as I can tell from a couple metres away

Yes, the red is Lychnis chalcedonica.
The blue looks like a small delphinium from here. Leaves would be OK for that too.

Quote:

Is this a perennial geranium?

No, it's something in the Mallow family (which covers Malva (mallow), Alceae and hollyhocks, amongst others)

You can tell it's a mallow because the way the sexual parts in the centre are built up into a sort of spire - Geranium doesn't have this - and also the neat way the buds are wound up in a spirally symmetrical way, with each petal being outside one petal and inside one petal. Most 5-petalled flowers don't show this symmetry - they have one petal which is inside other petals on both sides, and one petal which is outside other petals on both sides.