Geranium incanum candles or crane bills

The composite fruit of Geranium incanum holds five individual seeds, or really fruits, developing at the base of the long, straight, candle-like style. The thin upper part is normally thought to be beak-like, usually likened to the bill of a crane. This kind of fruit is called an achene, i.e. a small, dry, indehiscent one-seeded fruit.

The ovary, enveloped by the calyx of five acutely pointed sepals, is already well segmented into five hairy bulges in the photo. The hairy style, green or brown here, is tipped by the stigma, looking like a flywhisk of hairy strands.

The five-pointed calyx folds over the growing fruit, disclosing only their hairy tops. These bulges are the locules of the ovary that will split away from each other when the stalked seeds are ripe. Botanically such a fruit structure is called a schizocarp (Bean and Johns, 2005; Wikipedia).