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I have my raised beds full of this weed, from distance if looks like clovers but up close the leaves are more like parsley. It stays at ground level and has no flowers yet. The second pic shows the root and stalks.

I want to know if I should get rid of it, or if I can just till the soil a bit and use it as green fertilizer.

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  • Did you see any flowers yet?
    – Stephie
    Aug 14, 2019 at 19:46
  • No, no flowers yet, it has some little "balls", not sure if those are the flowers.
    – csamx
    Aug 14, 2019 at 20:20
  • Which region/continent? A geranium? Aug 15, 2019 at 6:59

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One candidate for this plant is Geranium molle, or Doves foot cranesbill. The Inaturalist page gives quite a lot of useful information including distribution and there are many other descriptions of this plant. Arguments in favour are somewhat fleshy stems and leaves, leaf shape, hairy, purplish stems, long petioles. It is highly variable, note the number of varieties.

Sometimes we can get information from the shape of the flowers or fruits. The little balls observed may be either flowers or fruits, take one or two and slice them open to see what is inside; look for layered nascent flower petals or solid fleshy seed. Look carefully and see if any of the balls have the telltale eponymous beak. There is not a lot of root in your photos, is it entirely fibrous root or do the branches spread from a main taproot? Any odour when you crush a leaf?

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